  We investigate theoretically and numerically the coupling between elastic and
localized surface plasmon modes in a system of gold nanocylinders separated
from a thin gold film by a dielectric spacer of few nanometers thickness. That
system supports plasmon modes confined in between the bottom of the
nanocylinder and the top of the gold film, which arise from the formation of
interference patterns by short-wavelength metal-insulator-metal propagating
plasmon. First we present the plasmonic properties of the system though
computer-simulated extinction spectra and field maps associated to the
different optical modes. Next a simple analytical model is introduced, which
allows to correctly reproduce the shape and wavelengths of the plasmon modes.
This model is used to investigate the efficiency of the coupling between an
elastic deformation and the plasmonic modes. In the last part of the paper, we
present the full numerical simulations of the phononic properties of the
system, and then compute the acousto-plasmonic coupling between the different
plasmon modes and five acoustic modes of very different shape. The efficiency
of the coupling is assessed first by evaluating the modulation of the resonance
wavelength, which allows comparison with the analytical model, and finally in
term of time-modulation of the transmission spectra on the full visible range,
computed for realistic values of the deformation of the nanoparticle.
