Plasmonic Percolation: Plasmon-Manifested Dielectric-to-Metal Transition

Percolation generally refers to the phenomenon of abrupt variations in electrical, magnetic, or optical properties caused by gradual volume fraction changes of one component across a threshold in bicomponent systems. Percolation behaviors have usually been observed in macroscopic systems, with most studies devoted to electrical percolation. We report on our observation of plasmonic percolation in Au nanorod core–Pd shell nanostructures. When the...