Surface plasmon characteristics of tunable photoluminescence in single gold nanorods

• Published in: Physical review letters 2005-12, Vol.95 (26), p.267405.1-267405.4, Article 267405
• Main Authors: BOUHELIER, A, BACHELOT, R, LERONDEL, G, KOSTCHEEV, S, ROYER, P, WIEDERRECHT, G. P
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Collective excitations (including excitons, polarons, plasmons and other charge-density excitations); Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties; Electronic structure and electrical properties of surfaces, interfaces, thin films and low-dimensional structures; Engineering Sciences; Exact sciences and technology; Nanocrystals and nanoparticles; Optical properties and condensed-matter spectroscopy and other interactions of matter with particles and radiation; Optical properties of low-dimensional, mesoscopic, and nanoscale materials and structures; Optics; Photonic; Physics; Surface and interface electron states
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.95.267405

Light emission resulting from two-photon excited gold nanoparticles has been proposed to originate from the radiative decay of surface plasmon resonances. In this vein, we investigated luminescence from individual gold nanorods and found that their emission characteristics closely resemble surface plasmon behavior. In particular, we observed spectral similarities between the scattering spectra of individual nanorods and their photoluminescence emission. We also measured a blueshift of the photoluminescence peak wavelength with decreasing aspect ratio of the nanorods as well as an optically tunable shape-dependent spectrum of the photoluminescence. The emission yield of single nanorods strongly depends on the orientation of the incident polarization consistent with the properties of surface plasmons.