Numerical modeling of active thermo-plasmonics experiments

In this paper, we present a simple and robust numerical method able to predict, with high accuracy, the photo-thermal effects occurring for a gold nanoparticles arrangement under externally applied strain. The physical system is numerically implemented in the COMSOL Multiphysics simulation platform. The gold nanoparticles distributions are excited by linearly polarized light. By considering the system at rest and under the action of a mechanical stress, we analyze the extinction cross section, and we observe the production of heat at the nanoscale. The purpose of this work is to describe how sensitive the local temperature of the gold nanoparticles arrangement is to the formation of localized photo-thermal hot spots.