title: Plasmon-induced electrical conduction in molecular devices.
abstract: Metal nanoparticles (NPs) respond to electromagnetic waves by creating surface plasmons (SPs), which are localized, collective oscillations of conduction electrons on the NP surface. When interparticle distances are small, SPs generated in neighboring NPs can couple to one another, creating intense fields. The coupled particles can then act as optical antennae capturing and refocusing light between them. Furthermore, a molecule linking such NPs can be affected by these interactions as well. Here, we show that by using an appropriate, highly conjugated multiporphyrin chromophoric wire to couple gold NP arrays, plasmons can be used to control electrical properties. In particular, we demonstrate that the magnitude of the observed photoconductivity of covalently interconnected plasmon-coupled NPs can be tuned independently of the optical characteristics of the molecule-a result that has significant implications for future nanoscale optoelectronic devices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
authors.forename: Parag
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Banerjee
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Conklin
authors.forename: Sanjini
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nanayakkara
authors.forename: Tae-Hong
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Therien
authors.forename: Dawn A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Bonnell