Nanomaterials for Magnetoplasmonics

Magnetoplasmonics is an emerging research area which is attracting growing interest from the scientific community. It is part of the more general field of active plasmonics, as it aims at finding suitable ways to efficiently exploit the modulation of the resonance conditions of a plasmonic system by tailoring intensity and direction of an external magnetic field. From a reverse point of view, the electromagnetic field associated to the plasmon resonance can be used to control the magneto-optical response of the magnetoplasmonic nanostructure. The successful production of efficient magneto-plasmonic materials is a complex task due to the severe limitations imposed by the physical nature of the constituents. The amplitude of the modulation is indeed rather small in purely plasmonic resonators, but it can increase significantly if a magnetic metal able to sustain plasmon resonance is used or by designing appropriate hybrid magnetic-plasmonic nanostructures. Here we discuss some of the approaches that have been proposed and tested to date in the effort of fabricating nanomaterials with strongly intertwined plasmonic and magneto-optical properties. In particular, we will focus our analysis on systems supporting localized surface plasmon resonance, i.e. zero-dimensional magnetoplasmonic materials.