Controlling Localized Surface Plasmon Resonances in GeTe Nanoparticles Using an Amorphous-to-Crystalline Phase Transition

Mark J. Polking, Prashant K. Jain, Yehonadav Bekenstein, Uri Banin, Oded Millo, Ramamoorthy Ramesh, and A. Paul Alivisatos

Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 037401 – Published 16 July 2013

Abstract

Infrared absorption measurements of amorphous and crystalline nanoparticles of GeTe reveal a localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) mode in the crystalline phase that is absent in the amorphous phase. The LSPR mode emerges upon crystallization of amorphous nanoparticles. The contrasting plasmonic properties are elucidated with scanning tunneling spectroscopy measurements indicating a Burstein-Moss shift of the band gap in the crystalline phase and a finite density of electronic states throughout the band gap in the amorphous phase that limits the effective free carrier density.

Received 22 January 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.037401

Authors & Affiliations

Mark J. Polking^1,†, Prashant K. Jain², Yehonadav Bekenstein^3,4, Uri Banin³, Oded Millo^4,*, Ramamoorthy Ramesh^1,5,*, and A. Paul Alivisatos^5,6,*

¹Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
²Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
³Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
⁴Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
⁵Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
⁶Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

^*To whom correspondence should be addressed. milode@mail.huji.ac.il rramesh@berkeley.edu alivis@berkeley.edu
^†Present address: Department of Chemistry, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.