Abstract
The optical extinction spectra of micro- and nanoparticles made up of high-contrast dielectrics exhibit a set of very intense peaks due to the excitations of morphology-dependent resonances (MDRs). These kind of resonances are well known at the microscopic scale as whispering gallery modes. In this work, we study numerically the optical spectra corresponding to a core–shell structure composed by an infinite silicon nanowire coated with a silver shell. This structure shows a combination of both excitations: MDRs and the well-known surface plasmon resonances in dielectric metallic core–shell nanoparticles (Ekeroth Abraham and Lester, Plasmon 2012). We compute in an exact form the complete electromagnetic response for both bare and coated silicon nanowires in the range of 24–200 nm of cross-sectional sizes. We take into account an experimental bulk dielectric function of crystalline silicon and silver by using a correction by size of the metal dielectric function. In this paper, we consider small silver shells in the range of 1–10 nm of thickness as coatings. We analyze the optical response in both the far and near fields, involving wavelengths in the extended range of 300–2,400 nm. We show that the MDRs excited at the core are selectively perturbated by the metallic shell through the bonding and antibonding surface plasmons (SPs). This perturbation depends on both the size of the core and the thickness of the shell, and, as a consequence, we get an efficient tuneable and detectable simple system. Our calculations apply perfectly to long nanotubes compared to the wavelength for the two fundamental polarizations (s, p).
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11468-013-9555-5/MediaObjects/11468_2013_9555_Fig1_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11468-013-9555-5/MediaObjects/11468_2013_9555_Fig2_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11468-013-9555-5/MediaObjects/11468_2013_9555_Fig3_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11468-013-9555-5/MediaObjects/11468_2013_9555_Fig4_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11468-013-9555-5/MediaObjects/11468_2013_9555_Fig5_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11468-013-9555-5/MediaObjects/11468_2013_9555_Fig6_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11468-013-9555-5/MediaObjects/11468_2013_9555_Fig7_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11468-013-9555-5/MediaObjects/11468_2013_9555_Fig8_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11468-013-9555-5/MediaObjects/11468_2013_9555_Fig9_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11468-013-9555-5/MediaObjects/11468_2013_9555_Fig10_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11468-013-9555-5/MediaObjects/11468_2013_9555_Fig11_HTML.gif)
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ekeroth Abraham RM, Lester MF (2012) Plasmonics (7):579–587
Matsko AB, Ilchenko VS (2006) IEEE J Sel Top Q Elect 12(1):3–14
Gorodetsky ML, Fomin AE (2006) IEEE J Sel Top Q Elect 12(1):33–39
Johnson BR (1993) J Opt Soc Am A 10:343–352
Niitsoo O, Couzis A (2011) J Coll Interf Sci 354:887–890
Tang S et al (2007) J Sol Stat Chem 180:2871–2876
Amoruso S, Ausanio G et al (2004) App Phys Lett 84(22):4502–4504
Zhu SL et al (2011) Surf Coat Tech 205:2985–2988
Fojtik A et al (1993) Phys Chem 97:1493–1496
Chen H et al (2011) J Pow Sources 196:6657–6662
Hu L, Chen G (2007) Nano Lett 7(11):3249–3252
Mohapatra S et al (2008) App Phys Lett 92(103105):1–3
Krasavin AV, Zayats AV (2010) Opt Exp 18(11):11791–11799
O’Farrell N, Houlton A, Horrocks BR (2006) Inter J Nanomed 1(4):451–472
Meier C, Wiggers H et al (2007) J App Phys 101(103112):1–8
Lin N et al (2011) J Phys Chem C 115:3198–3202
Zhuo S-J et al (2010) J App Phys 108(034305):1–4
Bardhan R et al (2010) AC Nano 4(10):6169–6179
Idrobo JC (2009) Phys Rev B 79(125322):1–6
Miroshnichenko AE (2010) Phys Rev A 81(053818):1–5
Evlyukhin AB et al (2010) Phys Rev B 82(045404):1–12
Kumar V (2007) Nanosilicon. Elsevier, Amsterdam
Wang LV, Wu H-I (2007) Biomedical optics: principles and imaging. Wiley, Hoboken
Xu C et al (1996) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (Biophysics) 93:10763–10768
Ekeroth RMA, Lester M, Scaffardi LB, Schinca DC (2011) Plasm 6(3):435–444
Palik ED (1998) Handbook of optical constants of solids II. Elsevier, Amsterdam
Lester MF, Skigin DC (2007) J Opt A: Pure Appl Opt 9:81–87
Shu WX, Ren Z, Luo HL, Li F (2007) Eur Phys J D 41:541–546
Ma DDD et al (2011) Science 299:1874–1877
Tsu R (1997) J App Phys 82(3):1327–1329
Ren SY et al (1992) Phys Rev B 45(12):6492–6496
van Buuren T et al (1998) Phys Rev Lett 80(17):3803–3806
Schinca DC et al (2009) J Phys D Appl Phys 42(215102):1–9
Kreibig U (1974) J Phys F Metal Phys 4:999–1014
Novotny L, Hecht B (2006) Principles of nano-optics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Wu D, Xu XD, Liu XJ (2008) Sol State Comm 146:7–11
Prodan E, Nordlander P (2002) Chem Phys Lett 352:140
Liu WF, Oh JI, Shen WZ (2011) Nanotechnology 22:125705
Prodan E, Nordlander P (2004) J Chem Phys 120(11):5444–5454
Moradi A (2008) J Phys Chem Sol 69:2936–2938
Maier SA (2007) Plasmonics: fundamentals and applications. Springer, New York
She H-Y, Li L-W, Martin OJF, Mosig JR (2008) Opt Lett 16(2):1007–1019
Scaffardi LB, Lester M, Skigin D, Tocho JO (2007) Nanotech 18(315402):1–8
Jain PK, El-Sayed MA (2007) Nano Lett 7(9):2854–2858
Jain PK, El-Sayed MA (2008) J Phys Chem C 112:4954–4960
Tseng H-C (2010) Opt Expr 18(17):18360–18367
Stratton JA (2007) Electromagnetic theory. IEEE, New York
Park T-H, Nordlander P (2009) Chem Phys Lett 472:228–231
Korvink JG, Greiner A (2002) Semiconductors for Micro and Nanotechnology. Wiley, Weinheim
Jellison Jr. GE, Modine FA (1994) J Appl Phys 76(6):3758–3761
Nussenzveig HM (1992) Difraction effects in semiclassical scattering. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Van de Hulst HC (1957) Light scattering: by small particles. Dover, New York
Chu M-W (2009) Nano Lett 9(1):399–404
Nordlander P et al (2004) Nano Lett 4(5):899–903
Solis D Jr, et al (2012) Nano Lett 12:1349–1353
Noskov RE, Krasnok AE, Kivshar YS (2012) New J Phys 14(093005):1–10
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ekeroth, R.M.A., Lester, M. Optical Properties of Silver-Coated Silicon Nanowires: Morphological and Plasmonic Excitations. Plasmonics 8, 1417–1428 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-013-9555-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-013-9555-5