Electron-beam mapping of plasmon resonances in electromagnetically interacting gold nanorods

Electron energy-loss spectroscopy and energy-filtered transmission electron-microscope imaging are used to characterize the energy distribution of the surface plasmon of isolated and coupled gold nanorods. Local-field enhancement and spectral shift of the plasmon modes are observed for two interacting nanoparticles. The spatial modes measured by energy loss are shown to share qualitative similarities with the electromagnetic field distribution around gold nanorods induced by optical excitation as simulated using the discrete dipole-approximation method.