Crystal structure dependence of the breathing vibration of individual gold nanodisks induced by the ultrafast laser

The ultrafast laser-excited breathing vibrations of gold nanodisks with different crystal structures have been studied via atomistic simulations. The vibrational periods and damping rates of nanodisks are obtained by the analysis of the simulated transient responses of nanodisks. It is shown that the breathing period of nanodisks is considerably dependent on their crystal structure, which is contrary to the cases for the breathing vibration of metal nanospheres and nanorods. Furthermore, single-crystal nanodisks exhibit much lower intrinsic damping as compared with polycrystalline nanodisks, for which the additional energy dissipation by the grain boundaries in the polycrystalline nanodisks could be one major factor.