Bonding and charge transfer plasmons of conductively bridged nanoparticles: The effects of junction conductance and nanoparticle morphology

A detailed study of charge transfer plasmon properties of conductively bridged nanoparticles is essential for designing artificial molecules and developing plasmonic sensors. In this report, we demonstrate spectral tuning and control of local field responses of conductively bridged and compositionally homogeneous plasmonic nanoparticles of various shapes and sizes. The scattering spectral peaks of connected nanoparticles are tuned by controlling inter-particle feed-gap, junction conductance, and nanoparticle morphology. The far-field spectral responses are further tuned by increasing the number of nanoparticles from dimer to trimer, and a generalized expression for charge transfer plasmon peak shift with junction geometry is developed for various shapes of nanotrimers. The corresponding near-field distributions of the linked nanoparticles also exhibit remarkable features. Specifically, the local field profiles of dimer nanoparticles calculated at the charge transfer wavelengths show strong interaction between the nanoparticles. On the other hand, in the bridged symmetrical nanotrimers, the central nanoparticles act as a bridge and only the rest two of the nanoparticles show bright modes. These findings suggest that using conductively bridged nanoaggregates could play a significant role in tuning far-field spectral responses of plasmonic nanostructures for practical applications in molecular sensing. Published by AIP Publishing.