Multimodal plasmon coupling in low symmetry gold nanoparticle pairs detected in surface-enhanced Raman scattering

We report on surface-enhanced Raman scattering of silicon phonon vibrations from arrays of gold nanoprism pairs fabricated by electron beam lithography. We found that resonant excitation of the quadrupolar surface plasmon mode of the nanoprisms increases Raman scattering intensity from the substrate as the distance between the nanoparticle pairs decreases. Finite element modeling and plasmon coupling theory indicate that symmetry is reduced as the nanoparticles approach, resulting in increased dipole-quadrupole coupling. Plasmonic enhancement of the incident and Raman-scattered photons results from the dipolar component of the mixed plasmonic field. This effect is expected to be largest in assemblies/aggregates of nanoparticles. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3555429]