Close encounters between two nanoshells.
Plasmonic nanoparticle pairs known as "dimers" embody a simple system for generating intense nanoscale fields for surface enhanced spectroscopies and for developing an understanding of coupled plasmons. Individual nanoshell dimers in directly adjacent pairs and touching geometries show dramatically different plasmonic properties. At close distances, hybridized plasmon modes appear whose energies depend extremely sensitively on the presence of a small number of molecules in the interparticle junction. When touching, a new plasmon mode arising from charge transfer oscillations emerges. The extreme modification of the overall optical response due to minute changes in very reduced volumes opens up new approaches for ultrasensitive molecular sensing and spectroscopy.
Lassiter
J Britt
JB
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Laboratory for Nanophotonics, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA.
Aizpurua
Javier
J
Hernandez
Luis I
LI
Brandl
Daniel W
DW
Romero
Isabel
I
Lal
Surbhi
S
Hafner
Jason H
JH
Nordlander
Peter
P
Halas
Naomi J
NJ