title: Close encounters between two nanoshells.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Laboratory for Nanophotonics, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA.
authors.forename: J Britt
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Lassiter
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Aizpurua
authors.forename: Luis I
authors.initials: LI
authors.lastname: Hernandez
authors.forename: Daniel W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Brandl
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Romero
authors.forename: Surbhi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lal
authors.forename: Jason H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Hafner
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Nordlander
authors.forename: Naomi J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Halas