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    Tailoring Plasmonics of Au@Ag Nanoparticles by Silica Encapsulation
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2021) Schultz, Johannes; Kirner, Felizitas; Potapov, Pavel; Büchner, Bernd; Lubk, Axel; Sturm, Elena V.
    Hybrid metallic nanoparticles (NPs) encapsulated in oxide shells are currently intensely studied for plasmonic applications in sensing, medicine, catalysis, and photovoltaics. Here, a method for the synthesis of Au@Ag@SiO2 cubes with a uniform silica shell of variable and adjustable thickness in the nanometer range is introduced and their excellent, highly reproducible, and tunable optical response is demonstrated. Varying the silica shell thickness, the excitation energies of the single NP plasmon modes can be tuned in a broad spectral range between 2.55 and 3.25 eV. Most importantly, a strong coherent coupling of the surface plasmons is revealed at the silver–silica interface with Mie resonances at the silica–vacuum interface leading to a significant field enhancement at the encapsulated NP surface in the range of 100% at shell thicknesses t ≃ 20 nm. Consequently, the synthesis method and the field enhancement open pathways to a widespread use of silver NPs in plasmonic applications including photonic crystals and may be transferred to other non-precious metals. © 2021 The Authors. Advanced Optical Materials published by Wiley-VCH GmbH
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    Axion Mie theory of electron energy loss spectroscopy in topological insulators
    (Amsterdam : SciPost Foundation, 2021) Schultz, Johannes; Nogueira, Flavio S.; Büchner, Bernd; van den Brink, Jeroen; Lubk, Axel
    Electronic topological states of matter exhibit novel types of responses to electromagnetic fields. The response of strong topological insulators, for instance, is characterized by a so-called axion term in the electromagnetic Lagrangian which is ultimately due to the presence of topological surface states. Here we develop the axion Mie theory for the electromagnetic response of spherical particles including arbitrary sources of fields, i.e., charge and current distributions. We derive an axion induced mixing of transverse magnetic and transverse electric modes which are experimentally detectable through small induced rotations of the field vectors. Our results extend upon previous analyses of the problem. Our main focus is on the experimentally relevant problem of electron energy loss spectroscopy in topological insulators, a technique that has so far not yet been used to detect the axion electromagnetic response in these materials.