Spectral hole burning in absorption profiles of metal nanoparticles prepared by laser assisted growth

Towards the systematic investigation of the size dependent decay time of surface plasmon excitation

J. Bosbach, C. Hendrich, T. Vartanyan, F. Stietz, F. Träger
Universität Kassel, Fachbereich Physik, Heinrich-Plett-Str. 40, D-34132 Kassel, Germany
Received 29 November 2000

Abstract
We have combined two novel methods, i.e. persistent spectral hole burning and laser assisted growth, to measure the decay time T2 of surface plasmon excitation in metal nanoparticles of different size at constant well defined shape. The measured values of T2 amount to 6 +/- 0.4 fs and are independent of size for diameters ranging from 8 to 25 nm.

PACS. 78.66.Bz Metals and metallic alloys, 61.46.+w Nanoscale materials: clusters, nanoparticles, nanotubes, and nanocrystals, 71.45.Gm Exchange, correlation, dielectric and magnetic response functions, plasmons, © Springer-Verlag