TY - JOUR AU - Cunningham, Alastair AU - Mühlig, Stefan AU - Rockstuhl, Carsten AU - Bürgi, Thomas TI - Exciting Bright and Dark Eigenmodes in Strongly Coupled Asymmetric Metallic Nanoparticle Arrays PY - 2012 JF - Journal of Physical Chemistry C JA - J. Phys. Chem. C SN - 1932-7447 VL - 116 IS - 33 SP - 17746 EP - 17752 L1 - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jp301764d L2 - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jp301764d L3 - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jp301764d M3 - 10.1021/jp301764d UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp301764d N2 - The strong coupling between planar arrays of gold and silver nanoparticles mediated by a near-field interaction is investigated both theoretically and experimentally to provide an in-depth study of symmetry breaking in complex nanoparticle structures. The asymmetric composition allows to probe for bright and dark eigenmodes, in accordance with plasmon hybridization theory. The strong coupling could only be observed by separating the layers by a nanometric distance with monolayers of suitably chosen polymers. The bottom-up assembly of the nanoparticles as well as the stratified structures themselves gives rise to an extremely flexible system that, moreover, allows the facile variation of a number of important material parameters as well as the preparation of samples on large scales. This flexibility was used to modify the coupling distance between arrays, showing that both the positions and relative intensities of the resonances observed can be tuned with a high degree of precision. Our work renders research in the field of “plasmonic molecules” mature to the extent that it could be incorporated into functional optical devices. ID - 1318 ER -