Fundamental understanding of the light-matter interaction in the context of
nano-particles is immensely bene- fited by the study of geometry dependent
tunable Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR) and has been demonstrated to
have potential applications in various areas of science. The polarization
characteristics of LSPR in addition to spectroscopic tuning can be suitably
exploited in such systems as contrast enhancement mech- anisms and control
parameters. Such polarization characteristics like diattenuation and retardance
have been studied here using a novel combination of Muller-matrix polarimetry
with the T-matrix matrix approach for silver nano-rods to show unprecedented
control and sensitivity to local refractive index variations. The study carried
out over various aspect ratios for a constant equal volume sphere radius shows
the presence of longitu- dinal (dipolar and quadrupolar) and transverse
(dipolar) resonances; arising due to differential contribution of
polarizabilities in two directions. The overlap regions of these resonances and
the resonances themselves exhibit enhanced retardance and diattenuation
respectively. The spectral and amplitude tunability of these polarimetric
parameters through the aspect ratios to span from the minimum to maximum ([0,
1] in the case of diattenuation and [0, {\pi}] in the case of retardance)
presents a novel result that could be used to tailor systems for study of
biological media. On the other hand, the high sensitivity of diattenuation dip
(caused by equal contribution of polarizabilities) could be possibly used for
medium characterization and bio-sensing or bio-imaging studies.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, Proceedings of the Saratov Fall Meeting, 201