  Electron beam imaging is a common technique used for characterizing the
morphology of plasmonic nanostructures. During the imaging process, the
electron beam interacts with traces of organic material in the chamber and
produces a well-know layer of amorphous carbon over the specimen under
investigation. In this paper, we investigate the effect of this carbon
adsorbate on the spectral position of the surface plasmon in individual gold
nanoparticles as a function of electron exposure dose. We find an optimum dose
for which the plasmonic response of the nanoparticle is not affected by the
imaging process. The final publication is available at link.springer.com
