title: General properties of local plasmons in metal nanostructures.
abstract: Under the quasistatic approximation, the characteristics of a local plasmon resonance of a metal nanostructure exhibit several general properties. The resonance frequency depends on the fraction of plasmon energy residing in the metal through the real dielectric function of the metal. For a given resonant frequency, the Q factor of the resonance is determined only by the complex dielectric function of the metal material, independent of the nanostructure form or the dielectric environment. A simple result describing the effect of optical gain on the Q factor is also obtained.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Y Ron
authors.initials: YR
authors.lastname: Shen