Strong Suppression of Surface Plasmon Radiation Damping Rate in Noble Metal Nanoshells

Radiation damping of surface plasmon oscillations in metallic nanoparticles is proportional to their volume. For relatively large particles, this canal dominates the other mechanisms of relaxation and becomes the main limiting factor for spectral sensitivity of nanoparticles. In this communication, we consider metallic nanoshell with the dielectric core and calculate the radiation damping rate of surface plasmon oscillations, depending on the geometry and dielectric constants of the surrounding environment and the core. It is shown that surface plasmon radiation damping in nanoshell is suppressed by several orders of magnitude as compared to the solid particle of the same outer radius. This effect is conditioned by strong redshift of surface plasmon frequencies with the decrease of shell thickness. It is also demonstrated that the radiation damping rate of core–shell particle is highly sensitive with respect to the refractive index of surrounding media.