Nonlinear Optical Properties of Interconnected Gold Nanoparticles on Silicon

We report second harmonic generation (SHG) measurements in reflectivity from chains of gold nanoparticles interconnected with metallic bridges. We measured more than 30 times a SHG enhancement when a surface plasmon resonance was excited in the chains of nanoparticles, which was influenced by coupling due to the electrical connectivity of the bridges. This enhancement was confirmed by rigorous coupled wave method calculations and came from high localization of the electric field at the bridge. The introduction of 10% random defects into the chains of nanoparticles dropped the SHG by a factor of 2 and was shown to be very sensitive to the fundamental wavelength.