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Tunable subradiant lattice plasmons by out-of-plane dipolar interactions

Nature Nanotechnology volume 6, pages 423–427 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Plasmonic nanostructures concentrate optical fields into nanoscale volumes1,2, which is useful for plasmonic nanolasers3,4, surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy5,6 and white-light generation7. However, the short lifetimes of the emissive plasmons correspond to a rapid depletion of the plasmon energy, preventing further enhancement of local optical fields. Dark (subradiant) plasmons8,9,10,11,12 have longer lifetimes, but their resonant wavelengths cannot be tuned over a broad wavelength range without changing the overall geometry of the nanostructures. Also, fabrication of the nanostructures cannot be readily scaled because their complex shapes have subwavelength dimensions. Here, we report a new type of subradiant plasmon with a narrow (∼5 nm) resonant linewidth that can be easily tuned by changing the height of large (>100 nm) gold nanoparticles arranged in a two-dimensional array. At resonance, strong coupling between out-of-plane nanoparticle dipolar moments suppresses radiative decay, trapping light in the plane of the array and strongly localizing optical fields on each nanoparticle. This new mechanism can open up applications for subradiant plasmons because height-controlled nanoparticle arrays can be manufactured over wafer-scale areas on a variety of substrates.

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Figure 1: Template-stripping nanofabrication technique used to produce two-dimensional arrays of large nanoparticles with variable heights over wafer-scale areas.
Figure 2: Out-of-plane lattice plasmon resonances can be tuned by controlling the height of nanoparticles.
Figure 3: Strongly coupled two-dimensional nanoparticle arrays exhibit a continuously tunable Fano-like profile.
Figure 4: Local hot spots on strongly coupled nanoparticles are orders of magnitude higher than those on isolated nanoparticles with the same size and shape.
Figure 5: Far-field and near-field optical properties of strongly coupled two-dimensional nanoparticle arrays are correlated.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank H. Gao and J-C. Yang for help with sample characterization and G. C. Schatz and S. Zou for discussions. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under CMMI-0826219 and the NSF-MRSEC program at the Materials Research Center at Northwestern University (DMR-0520513). This work made use of the NUANCE Center facilities, which are supported by NSF-MRSEC, NSF-NSEC and the Keck Foundation. Use of the Center for Nanoscale Materials was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (contract no. DE-AC02-06CH11357).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, 2220 Campus Drive, Evanston, 60208, Illinois, USA

    Wei Zhou & Teri W. Odom

  2. Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, 60208, Illinois, USA

    Teri W. Odom

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  1. Wei Zhou
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Contributions

T.W.O. and W.Z. conceived and designed the experiments. W.Z. performed the experiments, fabricated samples and performed numerical simulations. W.Z. and T.W.O. analysed the data and co-wrote the paper. Both authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Teri W. Odom.

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Zhou, W., Odom, T. Tunable subradiant lattice plasmons by out-of-plane dipolar interactions. Nature Nanotech 6, 423–427 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2011.72

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