Synthesis of anisotropic concave gold nanocuboids with distinctive plasmonic properties

Gold nanoparticles have attracted considerable attention owing to their appealing plasmonic properties that have found applications in sensing, imaging, and energy harvesting. In the present article, we report the synthesis of anisotropic concave Au nanocuboids using a seeded growth method controlled by a seed concentration. Unlike conventional nonconcave counterparts which typically present two fundamental plasmonic modes (transverse and longitudinal modes), our experimental measurements and theoretical analysis show that the anisotropic concave Au nanocuboid has three plasmonic resonances. Theoretical calculations based on a finite element method confirm that the third resonance is a transverse "edge" mode, which is enhanced by the sharpened edges of the concave surfaces. This third resonance is found to be separated from the conventional broad transverse mode band. Because of the separation of the resonance mode, the quality-factor of the original transverse mode shows nearly a 3-fold enhancement.