Blue-shifted plasmon resonance of individual size-selected gold nanoparticles

The future implementation of integrated photonic devices requires the creation of nanostructures with well defined morphological and optical properties. To this end, we deposited size-selected gold nanoparticles produced by a gas phase aggregation cluster source on transparent substrates at room temperature with controlled impact energy. Interferometric optical detection measurements using a supercontinuum laser source demonstrated a blue-shifted plasmon resonance at the single particle level. The blue shift was observed to be more pronounced for small single clusters down to 3 nm in size.