Anisotropic plasmonic nanomaterials

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The proposed research program will develop fundamentally novel functional plasmonic nanomaterials. The unique nature of the nanomaterials will originate from their physical and/or chemical anisotropy that will be rationally designed and synthesized. Such anisotropy will lead to a plethora of new physical and chemical phenomena, which will be useful for various applications.The functionalities of novel nanomaterials will arise from localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPR), collective oscillations of conducting electrons in plasmonic nanoparticles, most often excited by illuminating such nanoparticles with a planar light wave. LSPR are responsible for many phenomena, including for example, for bright colors of gold or silver nanoparticle solutions, and have also found numerous applications in optics, biochemistry, spectroscopy, and engineering. A number of normal primitive LSPR modes can exist in a plasmonic nanoparticle. However, only an LSPR with a non-zero electric dipole moment can be excited by a far field optical wave, whereas many other LSPR modes remain unavailable, despite their potentially better spatial distribution in a nanoparticle and excitation energy. This prevents efficient use of the energy of light and needs to be addressed. By creating anisotropic environment near a plasmonic nanoparticle we will be able to induce mixing (hybridization) of normal LSPR modes. These new mixed LSPR modes will be linear combinations of the normal primitive modes, with a non-zero electric dipole moment and can therefore be excited with planar far field light. Spatial distribution of the modes and their energy will be tuned to improve the efficiency of functional light conversion.We will develop theoretical and experimental strategies for the rational design of anisotropic plasmonic nanomaterials, synthesize them and test their performance in thermoplasmonics, photo-catalysis, and hot electron generation.The research program will be interdisciplinary and collaborative in nature. I plan to maintain close contacts with colleagues from other disciplines (electronics, physics, biochemistry), as well as with industrial partners specializing in biomedical and optical devices. This will create very favorable conditions for undergraduate students, graduate students and postdocs to learn, advance their fundamental preparation and knowledge, and to gain comprehensive views and competitive skills. Such model has proven successful over the past 6 years.