Modeling of metallic nanostructures embedded in liquid crystals: application to the tuning of their plasmon resonance.

We numerically investigate arrays of metallic nanoparticles deposited on a glass substrate and covered by a liquid-crystal material. Extinction spectra at normal incidence are computed using the finite-difference time-domain method, and we show that by rotating the optical axis around an axis orthogonal to the main direction of illumination, it is possible to tune the resonance of the system according to a simple law. The spectral width of the tunability is studied as a function of different parameters.