Origin of localized surface plasmon resonances in thin silver film over nanosphere patterns.

Film over nanosphere (FON) patterns are formed by depositing a silver film on top of a close-packed polystyrene (PS) sphere template. Multiple localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) peaks are experimentally measured in the three-dimensional FON pattern for thin silver films. Increasing the sphere size in the close-packed template or the deposited silver film thickness red shifts the LSPR peaks to varying degrees. A finite difference time domain analysis reveals that the main LSPR peaks originate from a quadrupole and a dipole coupling mode near the triangle gap surrounded by three adjacent PS spheres. The physical location and the electromagnetic enhancement of the two resonant modes are determined for different thicknesses of deposited silver films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]