  A number of applications in nanoplasmonics utilize noble metals, gold (Au)
and silver (Ag), as the materials of choice. However, these materials suffer
from problems of poor thermal and chemical stability accompanied by significant
dissipative losses under high-temperature conditions. In this regard,
semiconductor nanoparticles have attracted attention with their promising
characteristics of highly tunable plasmonic resonances, low ohmic losses and
greater thermochemical stability. Here, we investigate the size-dependent
thermoplasmonic properties of semiconducting silicon and gallium arsenide
nanoparticles to compare them with metallic Au nanoparticles using Mie theory.
To this end, we employ experimentally estimated models of dielectric
permittivity in our computations. Among the various permittivity models for Au,
we further compare the Drude-Lorentz (DL) and the Drude and critical points
(DCP) models. Results show a redshift in the scattering and absorption
resonances for the DL model while the DCP model presents a blueshift. The
dissipative damping in the semiconductor nanoparticles is strongest for the
sharp electric octupole resonances followed by the quadrupole and dipole modes.
However, a reverse order with strongest values for the broad dipole resonance
is observed for the Au nanoparticles. A massive Drude broadening contributes
strongly to the damping of resonances in Au nanoparticles at elevated
temperatures. In contrast, the semiconductor nanoparticles do not exhibit any
significant deterioration in their scattering and absorption resonances at high
temperatures. In combination with low dissipative damping, this makes the
semiconductor nanoparticles better suited for high-temperature applications in
nanoplasmonics wherein the noble metals suffer from excessive heating.
