Hollow gold nanorectangles: the roles of polarization and substrate

Dimers of hollow gold nanorectangles ((197 ± 4) × (134 ± 6) nm outside and (109 ± 5) × (53 ± 3) nm inside) were fabricated via electron beam lithography with interparticle separations ranging from 27 ± 2 nm to 596 ± 8 nm. Spectroscopic investigation of these arrays showed multiple peaks under illumination polarized both parallel and perpendicular to the interparticle axis. Discrete dipole approximation theoretical calculations were used to investigate the nature of these multiple peaks. These calculations demonstrate that the multiple peaks arise due to a combination of multiple plasmon modes and interactions with the substrate. The substrate effects are more pronounced for the parallel polarization because parallel polarization (along the long axis) of the nanorectangles results in a much stronger dipole mode than for the perpendicular polarization (along the short axis). Next, we show how these peaks change, as the hollow nanorectangles are brought within coupling range of one another. In this endeavor, we make use of our previously reported method to directly convert scanning electron microscope images of the nanoparticles into the shape files for the theoretical calculations.