On the Universal Scaling Behavior of the Distance Decay of Plasmon Coupling in Metal Nanoparticle Pairs: A Plasmon Ruler Equation

Localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPR) in lithographically fabricated gold (Au) nanodisc pairs are investigated using microabsorption spectroscopy and electrodynamic simulations. In agreement with previous work, we find that the fractional plasmon wavelength shift for polarization along the interparticle axis decays nearly exponentially with the interparticle gap. In addition, we find that the decay length is roughly about 0.2 in units of the particle size for different nanoparticle size, shape, metal type, or medium dielectric constant. The near-exponential distance decay and the interesting “universal” scaling behavior of interparticle plasmon coupling can be qualitatively explained on the basis of a…