  We show that, when a gold nanoparticle is coated by a thin layer of nematic
liquid crystal, the deformation produced by the nanoparticle surface can
enhance the splitting of the nanoparticle surface plasmon. We consider three
plausible liquid crystal director configurations in zero electric field: boojum
pair (north-south pole configuration), baseball (tetrahedral), and homogeneous.
  From a calculation using the Discrete Dipole Approximation, we find that the
surface plasmon splitting is largest for the boojum pair, intermediate for the
homogeneous, and smallest for the baseball configuration. The boojum pair
results are in good agreement with experiment. We conclude that the
nanoparticle surface has a strong effect on the director orientation, but,
surprisingly, that this deformation can actually enhance the surface plasmon
splitting.
