Five closely spaced Au or Ag NPs are linearly arranged in analogy with Newton's cradle, forming various homogeneous and heterogeneous NP chains. Using small NPs, the Au–Ag–Ag–Ag–Au heterochain has the lowest propagation loss (17.6%) at short resonance wavelengths. When the NP diameter is increased to 80 nm, the dominant resonance is shifted to longer wavelengths. As low as 6% of the total energy dissipates in the intermediate NP component, and there seems to be little difference between the Au–Ag–Ag–Ag–Au heterochain and the Ag–Ag–Ag–Ag–Ag homochain. Besides the wavelength-dependent intrinsic loss (i.e., the imaginary part of the permittivity) in metals, the real part of the permittivity also plays a critical role in determining the propagation loss. Considering the high fabrication cost of the heterochain, the homochain composed of moderately large Ag NPs (<100 nm) may be an optimal choice for low-loss subwavelength energy transport in practice.

与牛顿摇篮类似，五个紧密排列的Au或Ag NP线性排列，形成各种均质和异质的NP链。使用小的NP，Au-Ag-Ag-Ag-Au杂链在短共振波长下具有最低的传播损耗（17.6％）。当NP直径增加到80 nm时，主共振移至更长的波长。低至总能量的6％耗散在中间NP成分中，Au-Ag-Ag-Ag-Au杂链与Ag-Ag-Ag-Ag-Ag同构链之间似乎没有什么区别。除了金属中与波长有关的固有损耗（即介电常数的虚部）外，介电常数的实部在确定传播损耗方面也起着关键作用。考虑到杂链的高制造成本，