Plasmonic properties of silver nanocube monolayers on high refractive index substrates

Extinction spectra of nanocubes supported by a symmetry breaking dielectric substrate are very different from those in solution. In this work, we varied the refractive index of the substrate in order to optimize the refractive index sensitivity (RIS) of supported silver nanocube monolayers. We found that on thin (5?C7?nm) silicon films, the RIS is characterized by the figure of merit (FOM) for the quadrupolar plasmonic mode as high as 5.0, making silicon supported silver nanocube monolayers a promising sensing platform.