Control of Intermolecular Electronic Excitation Energy Transfer: Application of Metal Nanoparticle Plasmons

Control of intermolecular electronic excitation energy transfer via metal nanoparticles is analyzed. Different control scenarios are presented which all utilize the effect of field-enhancement close to an optically excited metal nanoparticle. Due to this field-enhancement that part of a molecular chain or a molecular cluster gets excited which is in close proximity to the nanoparticle. Various simulation results are discussed related to the energy transfer kinetics in a uniform chain of 50 molecules in the vicinity of a single or two spherical gold nanoparticles. Interesting changes of the energy transfer pathways are found if the spatial and energetic arrangement between the molecular chain and the nanoparticles is altered.