Abstract

Metal nanoparticles (NPs) exhibit remarkable physical and chemical properties which are morphology-dependent. Particular interest has been paid in the optical response of NPs because their surface plasmon excitations strongly couple with external light. At the nanoscale, this physical property conducts to new phenomena because these surface plasmon resonances are localized and consequently they enhance the near electromagnetic field. This latter can be control for increasing significantly the sensitivity of optical spectroscopies. In this presentation, we discuss surface plasmon in metal NPs, their localization, the electromagnetic field enhancement of such plasmons and their application in the so-called tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) [1].

© 2014 Optical Society of America