title: Easily coupled whispering gallery plasmons in dielectric nanospheres embedded in gold films.
abstract: A new self-aligned robust method for coupling to whispering gallery modes (WGMs) of submicron microspheres utilizes their periodic arrangement without relying on nanopositioned external coupling devices. The microspheres are embedded in a nanostructured gold surface supporting delocalized plasmonic crystal modes that mediate the coupling, and can be tuned by the geometry. Detailed measurements of the angle- and orientation-dependent reflectivity reveal localized plasmonic WGMs whose energies scale with sphere diameter and agree closely with Mie calculations. Coupling between these plasmonic WGMs leads to mode splitting and the formation of plasmonic minibands of a controllable bandwidth.
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Cole
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sugawara
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Baumberg
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mahajan
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Abdelsalam
authors.forename: P N
authors.initials: PN
authors.lastname: Bartlett