Journal article
Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy Investigation into Symmetry in Gold Trimer and Tetramer Plasmonic Nanoparticle Structures
SJ Barrow, SM Collins, D Rossouw, AM Funston, GA Botton, PA Midgley, P Mulvaney
ACS Nano | AMER CHEMICAL SOC | Published : 2016
Abstract
We present a combined scanning transmission electron microscopy-electron energy loss spectroscopy (STEM-EELS) investigation into the mode symmetries of plasmonic nanoparticle trimer and tetramer structures. We obtain nanometer-resolved energy loss spectra for both trimer and tetramer structures and compare these to boundary element method simulations. We show that EELS, in conjunction with eigenmode simulations, offers a complete characterization of the individual superstructures, and we trace the evolution of both optically dark and bright modes and identify multipolar mode contributions. We then apply this technique to tetramer structures that exhibit an expanded range of mode symmetries f..
View full abstractGrants
Awarded by McMaster University
Funding Acknowledgements
S.J.B. thanks the University of Melbourne for a MATS scholarship and the Ernst and Grace Matthaei research scholarship. S.M.C. acknowledges the support of a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. D.R. acknowledges support from the Royal Society's Newton International Fellowship scheme. P.A.M. acknowledges support from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (No. FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. 291522-3DIMAGE and the European Union's Seventh Framework Program under a contract for an Integrated Infrastructure Initiative (Reference No. 312483-ESTEEM2). P.M. acknowledges Australian Research Council (ARC) support through LF 100100117. A.M.F. would like to thank the ARC for support via FT110100545 and DP120101S73. G.A.B. is grateful to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Canada, for a Discovery grant supporting this work. The electron microscopy was carried at the Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy, a national facility supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation under the MSI program, NSERC and McMaster University.