We investigate theoretically the effects of interaction between an optical dipole (semiconductor quantum dot or molecule) and metal nanoparticles. The calculated absorption spectra of hybrid structures demonstrate strong effects of interference coming from the exciton-plasmon coupling. In particular, the absorption spectra acquire characteristic asymmetric lineshapes and strong anti-resonances. We present here an exact solution of the problem beyond the dipole approximation and find that the multipole treatment of the interaction is crucial for the understanding of strongly-interacting exciton-plasmon nano-systems. Interestingly, the visibility of the exciton resonance becomes greatly enhanced for small inter-particle distances due to the interference phenomenon, multipole effects, and electromagnetic enhancement. We find that the destructive interference is particularly strong. Using our exact theory, we show that the interference effects can be observed experimentally even in the exciting systems at room temperature.
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