Excitonic properties of single CdSe nanowires and coupling to plasmonic nanocavities

Semiconductor nanowires (NWs) have attracted much attention as light emitters at the nanoscale. Due to their unique optical properties, they can be functionalized to hybrid structures in connection with plasmonic nanostructures. CdSe colloidal nanorods (NRs) show a fine structure which is investigated at single NW level. Four types of individual NR spectra have been found and attributed to different neutral, charged and multi-exciton states. Additionally, plasmons in single silver NWs have been investigated. Those metallic NWs allow us to study surface plasmon mediated interference phenomena in low-Q nanocavities. In a third step, metallic NW cavities are functionalized with semiconductor NWs to study exciton-plasmon interaction. Exciton-plasmon-photon conversion and waveguiding can be seen in dependence on wire length and metal semiconductor spacing in the investigated structure. (C) 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim