Independent engineering of individual plasmon modes in plasmonic dimers with conductive and capacitive coupling

We revisit plasmon modes in nanoparticle dimers with conductive or insulating junction resulting in conductive or capacitive coupling. In our study, which combines electron energy loss spectroscopy, optical spectroscopy, and numerical simulations, we show the coexistence of strongly and weakly hybridised modes. While the properties of the former ones strongly depend on the nature of the junction, the properties of the latter ones are nearly unaffected. This opens up a prospect for independent engineering of individual plasmon modes in a single plasmonic antenna. In addition, we show that Babinet’s principle allows to engineer the near field of plasmon modes independent of their energy. Finally, we demonstrate that combined electron energy loss imaging of a plasmonic antenna and its Babinet-complementary counterpart allows to reconstruct the distribution of both electric and magnetic near fields of localised plasmon resonances supported by the antenna, as well as charge and current antinodes of related charge oscillations.