Near-Field-Induced Femtosecond Breakdown of Plasmonic Nanoparticles

We studied the evolution of femtosecond breakdown in lithographically produced plasmonic nanoparticles with increasing laser intensity. Localized plasmons were generated with 40-fs laser pulses with up to 1.4 × 10 12 W/cm 2 peak intensity. The damage morphology shows substantial variation with intensity, starting with the detachment of hot spots and stochastic nanoparticle removal. For higher intensities, we observe precise nanolithographic mapping of near-field distributions via ablation. The common feature of these phenomena is the central role played by the single plasmonic hot spot of the triangular nanoparticles used. We also derive a damage threshold value from stochastic damage trends on the arrays fostering the optimization of novel nanoarchitectures for nonlinear plasmonics.