Drastic reduction of plasmon damping in gold nanorods

Summary form only given. Samples of gold nanospheres and nanorods are investigated in a conventional dark-field microscope For spectral investigations, the scattered light from single particles is focused with the microscope onto the entrance slit of a spectrometer coupled to a cooled CCD camera. This dark-field spectroscopy provides a nearly background free measuring technique and allows to record spectra with excellent signal to noise ratio.