Linear and ultra-fast spectroscopy of metallic nanoparticles : from ensemble to individual nano-objects
The size reduction of metals, from bulk to nanoparticles, induces significant modifications of their properties. For instance, the optical properties evolve and a new resonance, the localized surface plasmon resonance, appears in the optical spectrum and is responsible for the change of colors of metallic nanoparticles. This work is focused on studies of metals’ properties at the nanometric scale. In the first part, the vibrational and thermal properties are studied with a femtosecond spectroscopy technique. It is shown that it is possible to excite and detect optically vibrational frequencies in the terahertz domain by studying platinum nanoparticles formed by less than 100 atoms. The study of the thermal properties of the metallic nanoparticles (gold and silver) has shown that the boundary effect increases. This thermal boundary resistance, known as the Kapitza resistance, plays a dominant role in the heat transfer at the nanometric scale. A correlation between the experimental values of the thermal boundary resistance and the acoustic impedances of the boundary’s materials has been found. We have also shown that the Kapitza resistance is a decreasing function of the temperature in the 70-300K range. In the second part, the effect of the size reduction on the optical properties of non-spherical nanoparticles is observed. The Spatial Modulation Spectroscopy technique is used in order to locate and study individual gold nanorods. It is shown that the two geometrical parameters (the length and the diameter) of the nanorods influence the spectral linewidth of the localized surface plasmon resonance. This effect is not predicted by existing classical or quantum models