Motivated by the discovery of intriguing effects that arise when electromagnetic radiation interacts with metallic nanostructures, this book focuses on fabrication of extended-area plasmonic nanostructures, and the optimization of their optical response.

This thesis addresses the fabrication and investigation of the optical response of gold nanoparticle arrays supported on insulating LiF(110) nanopatterned substrates. Motivated by the discovery of the intriguing effects that arise when electromagnetic radiation interacts with metallic nanostructures, the thesis focuses on the application of bottom-up approaches to the fabrication of extended-area plasmonic nanostructures, and the optimization of their optical response. By developing a sophisticated effective-medium model and comparing the experimental findings with model calculations, the...