Multipolar surface plasmon peaks on gold nanotriangles

In this paper, we report on the observation of multipolar surface plasmon excitation in lithographically designed gold nanotriangles, investigated by means of far-field extinction microspectroscopy in the wavelength range of 400-1000 nm. Several bands are observed in the visible and near infrared regions when increasing the side length of the triangles. The assignment of these peaks to successive in-plane multipolar plasmon modes is supported by calculations using the discrete dipole approximation method. We show that the lowest three multipolar excitations are clearly resolved in the visible and near infrared range. These new spectral features could be very promising in nanooptics or for chemosensing and biosensing applications. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.