We examine the excitation of plasmonic resonances in arrays of periodically arranged gold nanoparticles placed in a uniform refractive index environment. Under a proper periodicity of the nanoparticle lattice, such nanoantenna arrays are known to exhibit narrow resonances with asymmetric Fano-type spectral line shape in transmission and reflection spectra having much better resonance quality compared to the single nanoparticle case. Using numerical simulations, we first identify two distinct regimes of lattice response, associated with two-characteristic states of the spectra: Rayleigh anomaly and lattice plasmon mode. The evolution of the electric field pattern is rigorously studied for these two states revealing different configurations of optical forces: the first regime is characterized by the concentration of electric field between the nanoparticles, yielding to almost complete transparency of the array, whereas the second regime is characterized by the concentration of electric field on the nanoparticles and a strong plasmon-related absorption/scattering. We present electric field distributions for different spectral positions of Rayleigh anomaly with respect to the single nanoparticle resonance and optimize lattice parameters in order to maximize the enhancement of electric field on the nanoparticles. Finally, by employing collective plasmon excitations, we explore possibilities for electric field enhancement in the region between the nanoparticles. The presented results are of importance for the field enhanced spectroscopy as well as for plasmonic bio and chemical sensing.

We examine experimentally the excitation of plasmon resonances in ordered two-dimensional diffractive arrays of gold nanoparticles placed in asymmetric refractive index environment. The excitation of the plasmon modes with narrow spectral profile in asymmetric environment was experimentally verified. The ability to tune the wavelength of these resonances in the near infrared range by varying the structural parameters of the periodic arrays in combination with size and geometry of the constituent nanoparticles is discussed

This Letter reports theoretical and experimental study of transverse-magnetic-like lattice plasmon modes originating from diffraction in periodic two dimensional arrays of metal nanoparticles. These modes lead to the transmission and reflection spectra exhibiting narrow linewidth Fano-like resonances which can appear as maxima, minima, or can have asymmetric peak-and-dip profile. The dependencies of the position and lineshape of the resonance on the lattice periodicity and angle of incidence are investigated. Numerical simulations of electric field distributions for different excitation conditions of lattice plasmon modes are also performed.