Effect of surface scattering of electrons on ratios of optical absorption and scattering to extinction of gold nanoshell

Abstract

Gold nanoshell’s high light scattering and absorption at its resonance wavelength have found applications in biomedical imaging and photothermal therapy. However, at nanoscale, metallic material’s dielectric function is affected by nanoparticle’s size, mainly via a mechanism called surface scattering of conduction electrons. In this work, the effect of surface scattering of electrons on the ratios of optical absorption and scattering to extinction (which is the sum of the absorption and scattering) of gold nanoshell is investigated. Simulation results for several shell thicknesses are compared. It is found that the electrons’ surface scattering increases the optical absorption ratio, and the thinner the shell thickness, the larger the increase in the difference of the absorption ratio between the situations with and without the surface scattering considered. The increase of absorption ratio is then verified by comparing simulation results to experimental measurements for three nanoshells. The parameters of the simulations to fit the experimental measurements show that the damping of conduction electrons in metallic shell geometry is larger than that predicted by the billiard scattering model.