Regular papers

Multipole polarizability of a nanodimer in optical waves

Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University, P.O. Box 13500, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland

^* patrick.grahn@aalto.fi

Received: 9 November 2012

Abstract

In this work we study the interaction of visible light with plasmonic nanodimers that, under particular illumination conditions, do not exhibit any electric dipole excitations. It has previously been found out that the dipole suppression phenomenon disappears when the illumination direction is reversed. As a consequence, a homogeneous nanomaterial consisting of such nanodimers can be expected to be spatially dispersive, such that the conventional electric polarization vanishes for certain directions of light propagation. In order to reveal the complete picture of the light-nanodimer interaction, we analyze the multipole excitations in a dimer at various illumination angles. In particular, we introduce an analytical model for the multipole polarizability tensors of the dimer that, in contrast to conventional polarizability tensors, depend on the light propagation direction. The model is verified by rigorous numerical calculations. It can be used to gain insight into the properties of optical nanomaterials, such as metamaterials, in which higher-order multipoles can be efficiently excited.