Nanoplasmonics

Abstract Metallic nanostructures are able to manipulate light on a wide scale of and far below the diffraction limit of the classical optic. The overall process is the excitation of surface plasmons localized in and around metallic nanostructures, recently termed as ‘nanoplasmonic’. Localized surface plasmons are collective charge oscillations in metal clusters of few nanometers in size. Their unique optical properties enable many applications, ranging from the enhancement of scattering processes and light absorption to biosensing on the single molecular level or high‐resolution imaging. This chapter describes briefly the fundamentals of the excitation of localized surface plasmons in single clusters, as well as the interaction between clusters. Some exciting new applications in biosensing, together with the well‐established methods of surface‐enhanced spectroscopy, are described.