Abstract
Metal nanoparticles have attracted intense attention due to their unique optical and thermal properties in various next generation applications such as micro-nano electronics and photonics. The near-field confinement between closely packed metal nanoparticles, which is enhanced due to their plasmonic behavior, creates high thermal energy densities under visible to near-infrared wavelength laser irradiation. As metal nanoparticles tend to be oxidized or change shape under laser illumination, resulting in nonlinear optical and thermal behavior, surrounding each metal nanoparticle with a dielectric shell could be a potential way to prevent these effects as well as to engineer their plasmonic behavior. In this study, we investigate energy transport within dimer and 4 nanoparticle (chain) configurations of 50 nm radius Au nanoparticles surrounded by dielectric shells under illumination from various laser sources in different dielectric media.