Spectral hole burning in absorption profiles of metal nanoparticles prepared by laser assisted growth: Towards the systematic investigation of the size dependent decay time of surface plasmon excitation

摘要

We have combined two novel methods, i.e. persistent spectral hole burning and laser assisted growth, to measure the decay time T_2 of surface plasmon excitation in metal nanoparticles of different size at constant well defined shape. The measured values of T_2 amount to 6 ± 0.4 fs and are independent of size for diameters ranging from 8 to 25 nm.