Particle-in-cell simulation of plasmonic nanoparticle

Summary form only given. Plasmonic nanoparticles are extensively used to enhance the optical performance of Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering, optical sensors for medical diagnostics, environment monitoring, bio-sensing and even food quality/ safety analysis. With the wide application in various fields, the simulation of the relevant plasmonic devices becomes important to predict the response of the optical/bio- sensors. However, most theoretical and simulation work current uses bulk optical permittivities for to represent plasmonic nanoparticles such as gold and silver, but in fact these bulk permittivity values may not be valid. Here, we use particle-in-cell modeling as a tool and compare the PIC results to that of a FDTD Maxwell solver (with experimental permittivity of the plasmonic nanoparticle). We want to demonstrate that PIC modeling can be used to predict the optical behavior of plasmonic nanoparticles without the explicit use of permittivity as in conventional FDTD methods.