We investigate the possibility of using arrays of closely spaced metal nanoparticles as plasmon waveguides for electromagnetic energy below the diffraction limit of light. Far-field spectroscopy on arrays of closely spaced 50 nm Au particles fabricated using electron beam lithography reveals the presence of near-field optical particle interactions that lead to shifts in the plasmon resonance frequencies for longitudinal and transverse excitations. We link this observation to a point-dipole model for energy transfer in plasmon waveguides and give an estimate of the expected group velocities and energy decay lengths for the fabricated structures. A near-field optical excitation and detection scheme for energy transport is proposed and demonstrated. The fabricated structures show a high propagation loss of about 3 dB / 15 nm which renders a direct experimental observation of energy transfer impossible. The nature of the loss and ways to decrease it by an order of magnitude are discussed. We also present finite-difference time-domain simulations on the energy transfer properties of plasmon waveguides.
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