Colorimetric polarization sensing with single plasmonic gold nanorods

Sushmita Biswas; Dhriti Nepal; Kyoungweon Park; Richard Vaia

doi:10.1117/12.917987

Translator Disclaimer

22 February 2012 Colorimetric polarization sensing with single plasmonic gold nanorods

Sushmita Biswas, Dhriti Nepal, Kyoungweon Park, Richard Vaia

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 8269, Photonic and Phononic Properties of Engineered Nanostructures II; 82692R (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.917987
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2012, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

The color of scattered light from longitudinal and transverse surface plasmon resonances of individual gold nanorods is used to detect the polarization direction of incident light at the nanoscale. The relative strength of the scattered intensities of the two resonances reflects the relative orientation between the polarization of incident light and the nanorod. The resultant colored spectrum is used as a metric for polarization sensing in a darkfield geometry. This technique is demonstrated in the visible to near infrared region by varying the aspect ratio of the nanorods between 2 and 5 with diameters less than 20 nm. The ability to determine the polarization of light visually at the nanoscale provides an important tool in material science and molecular biology for probing anisotropic material properties at the nanoscale using single nanorods. In contrast to photothermal imaging where laser induced deformation of nanoparticles occur, this bimodal darkfield scattering is non-destructive and internally calibrated. The tunability of the plasmonic bands by varying the aspect ratio is beneficial for the usage of this method over a broad spectral range.

Citation Download Citation

Sushmita Biswas, Dhriti Nepal, Kyoungweon Park, and Richard Vaia "Colorimetric polarization sensing with single plasmonic gold nanorods", Proc. SPIE 8269, Photonic and Phononic Properties of Engineered Nanostructures II, 82692R (22 February 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.917987

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE