Polarization-Sensitive Linear Plasmonic Nanostructures via Colloidal Lithography with Uniaxial Colloidal Arrays

Abstract

The ability of metallic nanostructures to support surface plasmon excitations is widely exploited nowadays for developing new technologies and applications in many fields, like communications, medicine or environment. It is known that the plasmonic response of a nanostructure is strongly dependent on its size and shape, and thus a fine control of these features is required for developing applications. In this paper uniaxial colloidal crystal arrays are prepared by convective self-assembly on DVD surfaces. These are then used as template/mask for metal film deposition, in order to obtain two original kinds of metallic nanostructures with controllable morphology: (i) linear arrays of metal half-shells (LAMHSs) and (ii) arrays of periodically serrated plasmonic strips (PSPSs). Angle-resolved optical transmittance measurements reveal the presence of several surface plasmon resonances, while polarized light transmission demonstrates the anisotropic plasmonic response of both LAMHSs and PSPSs. FDTD simulations support the experimental observations and help in the assignments of observed plasmon modes. The proposed linear metallic nanostructures can prove useful for the design of plasmonic components.

Uniformly spaced nanoscale cracks in nanoparticle films deposited by convective assembly

“…On the other hand, there are several uses for uniform cracks as nanoscale channels [31] and as optical devices [32,33] that provide separate length scales from the nanoparticle diameter to the film thickness to the spacing between cracks. Previous efforts [34] have investigated batch-wise drop drying techniques that have the potential of creating nearly parallel cracks over small areas.…”

Topology assisted self-organization of colloidal nanoparticles: application to 2D large-scale nanomastering

“…Direct observation shows that the main factor responsible for the ordering to occur in two dimensions is the capillary force, which is related to the evaporation rate. Therefore, the control of the evaporation rate can result in the formation of either a monolayer or multilayers [21]. The concentration (1 wt %) is chosen in order to ensure the formation of a dense mono-layered structure after the evaporation of water.…”

Surface-enhanced fluorescence imaging on linear arrays of plasmonic half-shells

“…Linear arrays of metal half-shells represent a particular version of MFoM in which the dielectric microspheres are arranged as parallel linear chains before metal coating. 26 Such a This is the author's peer reviewed, accepted manuscript. However, the online version of record will be different from this version once it has been copyedited and typeset.…”

“…Then, linear arrays of polystyrene colloidal microspheres were obtained by convective self-assembly (CSA) on the patterned inner surface of the DVD, from aqueous colloidal suspensions. The protocol employed to prepare the linear colloidal arrays and the home-built equipment used for CSA were described in detail elsewhere 26 . The resulting linear colloidal arrays were coated by silver films of 50 nm thickness, deposited by vacuum thermal evaporation.…”