Electric field tuning of plasmonic response of nanodot array in liquid crystal matrix

In this work we demonstrate the feasibility of electric-field tuning of the plasmonic spectrum of a novel gold nanodot array in a liquid crystal matrix. As opposed to previously reported microscopically observed near-field spectral tuning of individual gold nanoparticles, this system exhibits macroscopic far-field spectral tuning. The nanodot-liquid crystal matrix also displays strong anisotropic absorption characteristics, which can be effectively described as a collective ensemble within a composite matrix in the lateral dimension and a group of noninteracting individual particles in the normal direction. The effective medium model and the Mie theory are employed to describe the experimental results.