Recent progress in engineering and application of surface plasmon resonance in metal nanostructures

Plasmonics have found wide applications in the areas of photo-catalytics, nano-photonic integration, optical sensing, biological labeling, biomedical imaging, solar cells, surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, etc. Most of the applications are closely related with the properties of surface plasmon resonance that occurs when light and metal nanostructures interact. This article briefly reviews some of the important research progresses, as well as several new frontiers, in the areas of plasmonic engineering and application in the past decade. Specifically, we will introduce some of our theoretical and experimental progresses as well as experiences in studies with both metal nanoparticles and planar metal nanostructures. Moreover, several new regimes of plasmonics will be further discussed, including surface plasmon amplification, ultraviolet optical nano-antennae, optical bistability of nano-antennae, surface plasmon-assisted quantum interactions, etc. With the introduction, experiences and discussions, this review is aimed to boost national focus on the intriguing ways that enable metal nanostructures to manipulate and make use of light in nanoscale, which could be useful for the exploration of unknown frontiers and applications of plasmonics.