Localized surface plasmon resonances represent a peculiar phenomenon taking place in noble metal nanoparticles. These external electric field induced collective electron oscillations are the reason why such materials are employed in a huge number of fields like catalysis, optics, chemical and biological sensing, medical therapeutics, spectroscopy.<br/>The strong absorption peak characterizing plasmon excitations depends on the shape, size and surrounding medium<sup> </sup>of the nanoparticle, so an accurate understanding of how these factors affect the plasmon excitation is necessary to find the right way for improving their performances.<br/>This work investigates the class of the rod-like nanoparticles, by studying a simplified single linear chain of silver atoms. The main goal has been to understand on an atomistic scale the role of nuclear motions on the plasmon dynamics by employing a non-adiabatic Ehrenfest dynamics approach to follow the plasmon evolution and the effect of the coupling with vibrational degrees of freedom.&lt;span style="font-size:10.8333px"&gt; &lt;/span&gt;The effect of different vibrations on the plasmon will be presented. Our study shows that the plasmon dynamics is very sensitive to the nature of different molecular vibrations, showing different decay characteristics. The atomistic picture probed in this work is necessary to disentangle the effect of vibrational degrees of freedom on plasmon excitations and to understand on a microscopic point of view the underlying mechanism of the plasmon decay.

Atomistic scale investigation of plasmon decay in noble metal wires: The (eventually) catastrophic role of molecular vibration

254th National Meeting (2017)

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