Link, Stephan2019-05-172019-05-172018-052018-04-16May 2018Hosseini Jebeli, Seyyed Ali. "Absorption Localization in Plasmonic Heterostructures." (2018) Master’s Thesis, Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/105745">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/105745</a>.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/105745Plasmonic nanoparticles have found many applications in different areas such as nanoelectronics, energy harvesting and conversion, and photothermal therapy due to their strong interaction with light. The light absorption of homogenous plasmonic structures is mostly uniform and cannot be engineered easily. In this work, the absorption localization in heterogeneous structures is presented using different materials in the same structure as well as the same material in heterodimer structures composed of rods of different sizes. Pt decorated gold nanorods are found to have significant heat localization in the Pt particles due to their stronger light absorption than gold. The localization of absorption in the Pt is confirmed by performing correlated photoluminescence and scattering measurements as well as FDTD simulations. Additionally, gold nanorods of different sizes are coupled together to form a heterodimer. In this work, the results of changing the gap size between the nanorods are presented. This alters the amount of coupling between nanorods which allows control over the absorption intensity of each particle. Further, we find that the absorption hot spots can be switched in these structures by changing the excitation wavelength. Significant absorption localization is observed in both cases which demonstrates the great potential of plasmonic heterostructures for manipulating light-matter interactions.application/pdfengCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.Plasmonic nano particlesAbsorption enhancementThesis2019-05-17