Light trapping with standing waves has been achieved using photonic bandgap crystals, metal-dielectric waveguides and periodic metal nanocavity arrays. Compared with photonic materials, plasmonic metal nanocavities can provide light confinement at the sub-wavelength scale with strong near-field electric enhancement. The localized surface plasmons of individual metal nanoparticles can collectively couple...
Rationally assembled nanostructures exhibit distinct physical and chemical properties beyond their individual units. The development of nanofabrication tools enables precise structural defining of nanomaterials scalable to large areas. This dissertation focuses on plasmonic nanoparticle arrays that show unique diffractive coupling with lattice spacings engineered close to the wavelength of light....