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Surface plasmon polariton assisted optical switching in noble bimetallic nanoparticle system

Photoresponse of bimetallic Au-Ag nanoparticle embedded soda glass (Au-Ag@SG) substrate is reported for surface plasmon assisted optical switching using 808 nm excitation. Au-Ag@SG system is made by an ion beam technique where Ag^+ is introduced first in the soda glass matrix by ion exchange technique. Subsequently 400 keV Au^+ is implanted in the sample for different fluences which is followed by an ion beam annealing process using 1 MeV Si^+ at a fixed fluence of 2E16 ions.cm^{-2}. Characteristic surface plasmon resonance (SPR) peaks around 400 and 550 nm provided evidence for the presence of Au and Ag nanoparticles. An optical switching in the Au-Ag@SG system with 808 nm, which is away from the characteristic SPR peaks of Ag and Au nanoparticles, suggests the possible role of TPA owing to the presence of interacting electric dipole in these systems. The role of surface plasmon polariton is emphasized for the propagation of electronic carrier belonging to the conduction electron of Au-Ag system in understanding the observed photoresponse. Unique excitation dependent photoresponse measurements confirm the possible role of TPA process. A competitive interband and intraband transitions in the bimetallic system of Au and Ag with may be primarily responsible for the observation, which are validated qualitatively using finite difference time domain calculations where inter-particle separation of Au and Ag play an important role. Thus, a smart way of optical switching can be envisaged in noble bimetallic nanocluster system where long wavelength with higher skin depth can be used for communication purpose.