Optical Generation of Collective Plasmon Modes in Small Gold Chains Induced by Doping Transition-Metal Impurities

Neha Nayyar, Volodymyr Turkowski, and Talat S. Rahman

Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 157404 – Published 12 October 2012

Abstract

Our examination of the optical properties of small gold chains containing up to 24 atoms doped with a transition metal (TM) atom (Ni, Rh, Fe), using the time-dependent density functional theory, show the splitting of the collective plasmon peak. We associate the additional peak with a local plasmonic mode which corresponds to charge oscillations around the potential created by the $d$ orbitals of the impurity atoms. The effect is almost independent of the position of the TM atom in the chain, as long as it is not at the chain edge. This behavior is opposite to that of larger noble-metal-TM clusters (radius $> 1 nm$ ), in which doping with TM atoms does not lead to generation of new modes, and often produces a suppression of the main plasmon peak.

Received 21 October 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.157404

Authors & Affiliations

Neha Nayyar¹, Volodymyr Turkowski^1,2, and Talat S. Rahman^1,2,*

¹Department of Physics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816, USA
²NanoScience Technology Center, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816, USA