Plexcitons in Bowtie Nanocavities–Quantum Dots Systems Studied by Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy

Abstract

As hybrid excitations formed by strongly coupled plasmons and excitons, plexcitons are conventionally investigated by far-field scattering, absorption, or photoluminescence spectroscopy. Stimulated by the recently improved energy resolution, near-field electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) is gradually explored to reveal more insights into the plexciton phenomena with unprecedented spatial and energy resolution. In the current study, we study the plexcitons in silver bowtie nanocavities–semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) systems with EELS by numerical simulation and compare them theoretically with the far-field technique to illustrate the advantages of EELS, i.e., subnanometer resolution and dark plasmons. The insights gained might guide further theoretical and experimental studies of the strong coupling.