Plasmonic resonances in diffractive arrays of gold nanoantennas: near and far field effects

We examine the excitation of plasmonic resonances in arrays of periodically arranged gold nanoparticles placed in a uniform refractive index environment. Under a proper periodicity of the nanoparticle lattice, such nanoantenna arrays are known to exhibit narrow resonances with asymmetric Fano-type spectral line shape in transmission and reflection spectra having much better resonance quality compared to the single nanoparticle case. Using numerical simulations, we first identify two distinct regimes of lattice response, associated with two-characteristic states of the spectra: Rayleigh anomaly and lattice plasmon mode. The evolution of the electric field pattern is rigorously studied for these two states revealing different configurations of optical forces: the first regime is characterized by the concentration of electric field between the nanoparticles, yielding to almost complete transparency of the array, whereas the second regime is characterized by the concentration of electric field on the nanoparticles and a strong plasmon-related absorption/scattering. We present electric field distributions for different spectral positions of Rayleigh anomaly with respect to the single nanoparticle resonance and optimize lattice parameters in order to maximize the enhancement of electric field on the nanoparticles. Finally, by employing collective plasmon excitations, we explore possibilities for electric field enhancement in the region between the nanoparticles. The presented results are of importance for the field enhanced spectroscopy as well as for plasmonic bio and chemical sensing. (C)2012 Optical Society of America