Study of plasmon resonance in a gold nanorod with an LC circuit model

Gold nanorod has generated great research interest due to its tunable longitudinal plasmon resonance. However, little progress has been made in the understanding of the effect. A major reason is that, except for the metallic spheres and ellipsoids, the interaction between light and nanoparticles is generally insoluble. In this paper, a new scheme has been proposed to study the plasmon resonance of gold nanorod, in which the nanorod is modeled as an LC circuit with an inductance and a capacitance. The obtained resonance wavelength is dependent on not only aspect ratio but also rod radius, suggesting the importance of self-inductance and the breakdown of linear scaling. Moreover, the cross sections for light scattering and absorption have been deduced analytically, giving rise to a Lorentzian line-shape for the extinction spectrum. The result provides us with new insight into the phenomenon. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America