Abstract
Finite size effects on the optical properties of one-dimensional 1D and two-dimensional 2D
nanoshell dimer arrays are investigated using generalized Mie theory and coupled dipole
approximation within the context of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy SERS. It is shown that
the huge enhancement in the electromagnetic EM field at the center of a given dimer oscillates
with the length of the 1D array. For an array of fixed length, the EM enhancement also oscillates
along the array, but with a different period. Both types of oscillations can be attributed to the
interference of the dynamic dipole fields from different dimers in the array. When generalized to 2D
arrays, EM enhancement higher than that of the 1D arrays can be gained with a constant magnitude,
a salient feature advantageous to experimental realization of single-molecule SERS. � 2008
American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.3009293