Analysis of Exciton-Plasmon Nanohybrids

When a quantum dot is kept in the vicinity of a metal nanoparticle, a dipole-dipole coupling occurs between the two nanoparticles, which makes them behave like a single hybrid molecule possessing novel and interesting optical signatures tunable using a multitude of system properties such as the particle sizes, composition, inter-particle distance and the optical properties of the submerging medium. This thesis entails improved and computationally efficient analytical and numerical studies of such exciton-plasmon nanohybrids formed by illuminating a metal nanoparticle-quantum dot pair, placed in nanoscale vicinity, followed by a numerical demonstration of their prospects in bio-sensing.