Self-consistent determination of plasmonic resonances in ternary nanocomposites

We have developed a self-consistent technique to predict the behavior of plasmon resonances in multicomponent systems as a function of wavelength. This approach, based on the tight lower bounds of the Bergman-Milton formulation, is able to predict optical data, including the positions, shifts, and shapes of plasmonic peaks in ternary nanocomposites without using any fitting parameters. We obtained excellent predictions of the experimental data for mixtures of Ag:Cu: SiO2 and alloys of Au-Cu: SiO2 and Ag-Au: H2 O. The essential physics of plasmonic behavior is captured by this approach.