Open AccessLinear and nonlinear optical responses influenced by broken symmetry in an array of gold nanoparticles
Author(s) -
Brian K. Canfield,
Sami Kujala,
Konstantins Jefimovs,
Jari Turunen,
Martti Kauranen
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/opex.12.005418
Subject(s) - optics , symmetry (geometry) , polarization (electrochemistry) , physics , symmetry breaking , tensor (intrinsic definition) , nonlinear system , condensed matter physics , materials science , molecular physics , quantum mechanics , geometry , chemistry , mathematics
An array of low-symmetry, L-shaped gold nanoparticles is shown to exhibit high sensitivity to the state of incident polarization. Small imperfections in the shape of the actual particles, including asymmetric arm lengths and edge distortions, break the symmetry attributed to an ideal particle. This broken symmetry leads to a large angular displacement of the extinction axes from their expected locations. More significantly, second-harmonic generation experiments reveal significant second-order susceptibility tensor components forbidden to the ideal symmetry.