Optical properties of bimetallic compositional heterodimers

Phys Chem Chem Phys. 2018 Jul 18;20(28):19017-19022. doi: 10.1039/c8cp03346c.

Abstract

Many important applications of nanometer-sized metal objects arise from the light-induced interactions between their component structures. Here, we demonstrate through state-of-the-art quantum mechanical simulations, the optical response of bimetallic heterodimers (two closely adjacent nanoparticles) composed of Al and Na nanoparticles. We calculate the optical response using time-dependent density functional theory. We found that Al-Na bimetallic heterodimers show rich optical features, strongly depending on the size heterogeneity and interparticle gap distances. In particular, we observe remarkable optical field enhancements and creation of new low-energy absorption peaks with respect to the single Al and Na nanoparticles. We believe that our results may influence the design of future nanoparticle-based optical nanoantenna.