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In Situ Observation of Plasmon Tuning in a Single Gold Nanoparticle during Controlled Melting
journal contribution
posted on 2013-05-08, 00:00 authored by Alexander Kuhlicke, Stefan Schietinger, Christian Matyssek, Kurt Busch, Oliver BensonIn this Letter we study the relations
among shape, symmetry, and
plasmon resonance shift in a single gold nanoparticle during laser
melting. A beam of an argon ion laser is focused on a selected particle,
while its optical and shape properties can be observed with the help
of a combined dark-field/photoluminescence microscope and an atomic
force microscope, respectively. Starting from a spherical shape, radiation
pressure forms the melting gold particle into an upright standing
rod on a glass substrate, showing a characteristic dipole scattering
pattern. A red-shift of the photoluminescence signal and the scattering
spectrum is observed. The melting process can be controlled allowing
the formation of different particle heights and plasmon resonance
shifts. In situ tuning of the plasmon resonance of individual particles
is possible with this reversible melting process.