Influence of plasmon destructive interferences on optical properties of gold planar quadrumers.

Arrays of planar symmetric gold quadrumers consisting of a central nano-disc surrounded by three similar nano-discs belonging to the D(3h) point group were designed and fabricated. Since the geometrical configuration of quadrumers is the same as planar trigonal molecules, nano-discs can play the roles of artificial atoms to study the coupling trends among them. The plasmonic properties of the nano-disc structures are investigated by reflection spectrum measurement and finite-difference time-domain calculation with good agreement. Plasmon interaction among the nano-discs is also studied via a mass-spring coupled oscillator model. A pronounced Fano resonance (FR) is observed for the fabricated nano-discs with inter-disk gaps of around 18 nm during light irradiation at normal incidence. Although the obtained FR is independent of the excitation polarization, the near-field energy spatial distribution can be flexibly tuned by the polarization direction. This has potential applications in nano-lithography, optical switching and nonlinear spectroscopy.

Generation of pronounced Fano resonances and tuning of subwavelength spatial light distribution in plasmonic pentamers.

Arrays of plasmonic pentamers consisting of five metallic nano-disks were designed and fabricated to achieve a pronounced Fano Resonance with polarization-independent far-field spectral response at normal incidence due to the structure symmetry of pentamers. A mass-spring coupled oscillator model was applied to study plasmon interactions among the nano-disks. It was found that the direction of the excitation light polarization can flexibly tune the spatial localization of near-field energy at sub-wavelength scales while the collective optical properties are kept constant. It can lead to a selective storage of excited energy down to sub-20 nm gap at a normal incident with a single light source.