Thermal response of nanocomposite materials under pulsed laser excitation

The energy exchange within the noble metal nanoparticle and the surrounding dielectric host to a light pulse absorption was investigated. The investigation was based on time-resolved pump probe techniques and were realized on colloidal solutions of thin nanocomposite films. The temperature dynamics of the electrons, metal lattice and matrix as function of particle size and metal concentration of the medium was calculated numerically by the thermal interactions between the neighbouring particles. It was shown that in the femtosecond regime, the heat transfer to the matrix could not be neglected beyond a few picosecond.