Mapping surface plasmons on a single metallic nanoparticle
Author: ["Jaysen Nelayah","Mathieu Kociak","Odile Stéphan","F. Javier García de Abajo","Marcel Tencé","Luc Henrard","Dario Taverna","Isabel Pastoriza-Santos","Luis M. Liz-Marzán","Christian Colliex"]
Publication: Nature Physics
CITE.CC academic search helps you expand the influence of your papers.
Abstract
Understanding how light interacts with matter at the nanometre scale is a fundamental issue in optoelectronics and nanophotonics. In particular, many applications (such as bio-sensing, cancer therapy and all-optical signal processing) rely on surface-bound optical excitations in metallic nanoparticles. However, so far no experimental technique has been capable of imaging localized optical excitations with sufficient resolution to reveal their dramatic spatial variation over one single nanoparticle. Here, we present a novel method applied on silver nanotriangles, achieving such resolution by recording maps of plasmons in the near-infrared/visible/ultraviolet domain using electron beams instead of photons. This method relies on the detection of plasmons as resonance peaks in the energy-loss spectra of subnanometre electron beams rastered on nanoparticles of well-defined geometrical parameters. This represents a significant improvement in the spatial resolution with which plasmonic modes can be imaged, and provides a powerful tool in the development of nanometre-level optics.
Cite this article
Nelayah, J., Kociak, M., Stéphan, O. et al. Mapping surface plasmons on a single metallic nanoparticle. Nature Phys 3, 348–353 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys575
