Abstract

The interaction of light with nanoparticles can be understood through coupling with the intrinsic (or princpal) electromagnetic modes of the system. These modes are a generalisation of Mie's scattering solutions to generally shaped smooth nano-structures [1], comprising Hilbert spaces of internal and scattered modes of the system which are orthonormal at the surface of the structure, and show pairwise coupling between modes in the internal and scattered spaces. Resonances of the system can then be described in terms of either the generalisation of Mie's criteria of cancellation between the internal and scattered light, or by an enhancement of the coupling of incident light to these modes. In the linear optical regime. Using a simple superposition of incident light fields we can substantially change the optical spectra of nanoparticles by controlling the amplitudes of the particle modes.

© 2013 IEEE