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Time-effective, unsupervised clustering techniques are exploited to discriminate nanometric metal disks patterned on a dielectric substrate. The discrimination relies on cluster analysis applied to time-resolved optical traces obtained from thermo-acoustic microscopy based on asynchronous optical sampling. The analysis aims to recognize similarities among nanopatterned disks and to cluster them accordingly. Each cluster is characterized by a fingerprint time-resolved trace, synthesizing the common features of the thermo-acoustics response of the composing elements. The protocol is robust and widely applicable, not relying on any specific knowledge of the physical mechanisms involved. The present route constitutes an alternative diagnostic tool for on-chip non-destructive testing of individual nano-objects., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The impact of spherical symmetry breaking and crystallinity on the response of the vibrational acoustic modes of a nanoobject in frequency- and time-domain experiments is investigated using the finite-element analysis method. The results show that introduction of shape anisotropy, i.e., evolution from a nanosphere to a nanorod, modifies the periods of the fundamental radial and quadrupolar modes and leads to activation of a quadrupolar-like mode in time-domain studies. In contrast, crystallinity is shown to have a negligible impact on the breathing mode frequency of a nanosphere formed by a cubic crystal and does not activate any quadrupolar mode. The effect of an anisotropic excitation in time-resolved measurements of a large nanosphere is also discussed.

Electron-lattice energy exchanges are investigated in gold and silver nanoparticles with sizes ranging from 30 to 2.2 nm embedded in different environments. Femtosecond pump-probe experiments performed in the low-perturbation regime demonstrate a strong increase of the intrinsic electron-phonon interaction for nanoparticles smaller than 10 nm due to a confinement effect.