We present a full experimental characterization of isotropic artificial optical magnetism at visible frequencies produced by “raspberrylike” plasmonic nanoclusters synthesized by a bottom-up approach. Experimental measurements of extinction and light scattering associated with numerical simulations enable one to extract absolute values of the magnetic scattering cross section across the whole visible spectral range. The strength of the resonant magnetic response of a single magnetic nanocluster is illustrated as the effective magnetic permeability of a homogeneous sphere of identical volume.

• Received 24 August 2015
• Revised 1 December 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.92.220414