Heat generation in plasmonic nanostructures has attracted enormous attention due to the ability of these nanostructures to generate high temperatures in nanoscale volumes using far-field irradiation, enabling applications ranging from photothermal therapy to fast (sub-nanosecond) thermal optical switching. Here we investigate the optical and thermal response of a heterogeneous trimer structure composed of a gold nanoparticle surrounded by two larger silver nanoparticles analytically and numerically. We observe that this type of multi-scale multi-material plasmonic oligomer can produce temperature changes over two orders of magnitude higher than possible with isolated gold nanoparticles.

Date Published: 10 September 2014
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 9163, Plasmonics: Metallic Nanostructures and Their Optical Properties XII, 91631B (10 September 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2062259

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9163:
Plasmonics: Metallic Nanostructures and Their Optical Properties XII
Allan D. Boardman, Editor(s)