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Direct Detection of Highly Localized Metal-Metal Interface Plasmons from Bimetallic Nanoparticles

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Abstract

Tailoring of photon-matter interaction in solid material is critical for surface plasmon resonance-based sensing. This can be achieved from suitable material with interface engineering. The modified plasma oscillations in metal-metal interfaces are highly sought-after phenomena in plasmonics; however, such a localized nature of this oscillation has never been reported. Here we present the first evidence of localized interface plasmons from CoAg bimetallic nanoparticles by employing scanning transmission electron microscopy-electron energy-loss spectroscopy. We found that the localized interface plasmons oscillate with a frequency in between in-plane dipole localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) mode and quasiplanar mode. Moreover, we observed that the localized interface plasmon resonance is stronger than in-plane dipole LSPR which was characterized by comparing the quality factor of the energy-loss peaks. Such interface plasmon resonance was not distinctly observed from ensembles of CoAg nanoparticles by optical excitation incident normally; however, a broader in-plane dipole mode was observed compared to similar pure Ag nanoparticles. This direct detection of plasmons confined to the interface region could drive to future engineering of bimetallic interfaces with improved plasmonic activity.

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Data Availability

The data and materials that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

Authors would like to acknowledge the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division. The authors also want to thank Dr. Abhinav Malasi for experimental assistance.

Funding

The authors acknowledge financial support by the National Science Foundation (NSF) grant ECCS1607874.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Krishna Prasad Koirala

  2. Department of Material Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Jingxuan Ge, Ramki Kalyanaraman & Gerd Duscher

  3. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Ramki Kalyanaraman

  4. Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831, USA

    Gerd Duscher

Authors
  1. Krishna Prasad Koirala
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  2. Jingxuan Ge
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  3. Ramki Kalyanaraman
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  4. Gerd Duscher
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Contributions

GD and RK conceived and supervised the project. KPK, JG, and GD performed the experiment and data analysis. KPK, JG, and GD contributed to the data interpretation. KPK wrote the main manuscript. All authors discussed and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gerd Duscher.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Krishna Prasad Koirala and Jingxuan Ge are co-first authors.

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Koirala, K.P., Ge, J., Kalyanaraman, R. et al. Direct Detection of Highly Localized Metal-Metal Interface Plasmons from Bimetallic Nanoparticles. Plasmonics 16, 957–964 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-020-01345-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-020-01345-x

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