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Updated: Sep 5, 2026

Plasmonic Trapping and Release of Nanoparticles in a Monitoring Environment
Published on: April 4, 2017
Ultrafast Spatiotemporal Imaging of Disorder-Induced Strong Localization of Plasmon Resonances in Percolated Au
Qin-Xing Zhou1,2,3, Haoqiang Hu1, Da-Jie Yang4
1Department of Physics, State Key Laboratory of Quantum Functional Materials, and Guangdong Basic Research Center of Excellence for Quantum Science, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen518055, China.
Abstract:
A cyclic-sputtering technique is introduced for the self-assembled growth of nanopillars and the fabrication of percolated Au nanopillar films, which exhibit tunable quadrupolar resonances and a high percolating extinction in the near-infrared regime. More importantly, using photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM), several dark and luminous plasmonic eigenmodes enabled by disorder-induced resonance channels are identified. The percolating Au nanopillar films prepared with multiple deposition cycles (N = 84) demonstrate relative enhancements of 5.8, 36.8, and larger than 774.9 in percolating extinction, second-harmonic generation, and localized dark plasmon-assisted photoemission hotspots, respectively, compared with conventional percolating Au island films. Furthermore, it is revealed that the strong PEEM hotspots are induced by the interplay of dark and luminous modes, and the subsequent transport of excited nonthermal electrons is governed by quasi-ballistic electron scattering on the nanometer and femtosecond spatiotemporal scales. These findings advance the understanding of photonic Anderson localization and dynamical delocalization of dark plasmons in random nanostructures.

