MRSEC researchers at Northwestern University studying the effects that structure modification has on the plasmonic (electronic oscillations that interact with light) properties of metal nanowires have identified a interesting “plasmonic focusing” phenomenon on a new type of nanostructure. Researchers have recently found that gold nanorods paired with hemicylindrical “sheath” structures will focus plasmons to specific regions along the nanostructure. This allows for fine control over these electron oscillations, which will enable the researchers to not only gain a greater fundamental understanding of how nanostructure shape influences these fingerprint-like plasmonic signatures, but also offers clues to how this phenomenon can be leveraged to create new, effective detection or optical focusing/enhancing motifs.
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