A combination of plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) with semiconductor photocatalysts, called plasmonic photocatalysts, can be a good candidate for highly efficient photocatalysts using broadband solar light because it can greatly enhance overall photocatalytic efficiency by extending the working wavelength range of light from ultraviolet (UV) to visible. In particular, fixation of plasmonic photocatalysts on a floating porous substrate can have additional advantages for their recycling after water treatment. Here, we report on a floating porous plasmonic photocatalyst based on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)−TiO 2 −gold (Au) composite sponge, in which TiO 2 and Au NPs are simultaneously immobilized on the surface of interconnected pores in the PDMS sponge. This can be easily fabricated by a simple sugar-template method with TiO 2 NPs and in situ reduction of Au NPs by the PDMS without extra chemicals. Its ability to decompose the organic pollutant rhodamine B in water was tested under UV and visible light, respectively. The results showed highly enhanced photocatalytic activity under both UV and visible light compared to the PDMS−TiO 2 sponge and the PDMS−Au sponge. Furthermore, its recyclability was also demonstrated for multiple cycles. The simplicity of fabrication and high photocatalytic performance of our PDMS−TiO 2 −Au sponge can be promising in environmental applications to treat water pollution.

Plasmonic metal nanostructures with nanogaps have attracted great interest owing to their controllable optical properties and intense electromagnetic fields that can be useful for a variety of applications, but precise and reliable control of nanogaps in three-dimensional nanostructures remains a great challenge. Here, we report the control of nanojunctions of hollow porous gold nanoshell (HPAuNS) structures by a facile oxygen plasma-etching process and the influence of changes in nanocrevices of the interparticle junction on the optical and sensing characteristics of HPAuNSs. We demonstrate a high tunability of the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) peaks and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) detection of rhodamine 6G (R6G) using HPAuNS structures with different nanojunctions by varying the degree of gold sintering. As the neck region of the nanojunction is further sintered, the main LSPR peak shifts from 785 to 1350 nm with broadening because the charge transfer plasmon mode becomes more dominant than the dipolar plasmon mode, resulting from the increase of conductance at the interparticle junctions. In addition, it is demonstrated that an increase in the sharpness of the nanojunction neck can enhance the SERS enhancement factor of the HPAuNS by up to 4.8-fold. This enhancement can be ascribed to the more intense local electromagnetic fields at the sharper nanocrevices of interparticle junctions. The delicate change of nanojunction structures in HPAuNSs can significantly affect their optical spectrum and electromagnetic field intensity, which are critical for their practical use in a SERS-based analytical sensor as well as multiple-wavelength compatible applications.

Hollow nanoporous gold nanoshells are fabricated by the size reduction of colloid templates and the sintering of AuNPs induced by plasma etching.

Aggregation of spherical gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) was monitored by simultaneous measurement of extinction, polarized light scattering (PLS), and depolarized light scattering (dPLS) spectra over time. The dPLS showed higher sensitivity to AuNP aggregation than the others due to its intrinsic sensitivity to the change in both the aspect ratio and volume of aggregates. This demonstrates that dPLS can be a very effective technique in various biochemical/chemical sensing applications based on the aggregation of AuNPs as probes.

Optimal color weighting (OCW) is a promising technique to improve accuracy and robustness of alignment mark measurement in the lithography process. Measurement based OCW shows remarkable improvement of overlay error under laboratory conditions. In those conditions, one of the wafer processes is split and a simple form of mark deformation is present. However, the OCW effect has not been confirmed in the case of on-product overlay since various of deformations are mixed in the real FAB. We perform simple simulation showing that mixed deformations can deteriorate the performance of OCW and show that utilizing spatial characteristics of the wafer with OCW further improves the overlay error. As a result, we have improved on-product-overlay form 3.78 nm to 3.51 nm or 7.1% using data of 86 lots, 268 wafers in DUV layer of 3 nm logic device.

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