ABSTRACT
The rapid surge of nano-optics in recent years has been fueled by both the fast growth of laser technologyl and significant advances in nanofabrication techniques.2 Modem experimental equipment allows researchers to go far beyond the diffraction limit to explore optics at the deep nanoscale, opening up a wide variety of applications ranging from metamaterials3 and nanoscale plasmonic devices4 through plasmonic circuitry5 and efficient solar energy harvesting6 to biomedical applications.7 A strong emphasis on plasmonic materials in these applications is due to several intriguing properties of nanoscale structures comprised of noble metals: their unique ability to resonantly scatter incident electromagnetic (EM) radiation in the visible part of the spectrum8 and extreme light concentration.9
