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Tunable plasmonic lattices of silver nanocrystals

Nature Nanotechnology volume 2, pages 435–440 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Silver nanocrystals are ideal building blocks for plasmonic materials that exhibit a wide range of unique and potentially useful optical phenomena. Individual nanocrystals display distinct optical scattering spectra and can be assembled into hierarchical structures that couple strongly to external electromagnetic fields. This coupling, which is mediated by surface plasmons, depends on the shape and arrangement of the nanocrystals. Here we demonstrate the bottom-up assembly of polyhedral silver nanocrystals into macroscopic two-dimensional superlattices using the Langmuir–Blodgett technique. Our ability to control interparticle spacing, density and packing symmetry allows for tunability of the optical response over the entire visible range. This assembly strategy offers a new, practical approach to making novel plasmonic materials for application in spectroscopic sensors, subwavelength optics and integrated devices that utilize field-enhancement effects.

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Figure 1: Novel superlattice architectures composed of different polyhedral building blocks.
Figure 2: Tunable plasmon response of a Ag cuboctahedra superlattice as a function of surface pressure.
Figure 3: Evolution of the plasmon response for the NC arrays with increasing surface pressures.
Figure 4: Optical response of Ag NC oligomers.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Office of Basic Science, Department of Energy. A.R.T. acknowledges the National Science Foundation for a graduate research fellowship. We thank the National Center for Electron Microscopy for the use of their facilities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Andrea Tao, Prasert Sinsermsuksakul & Peidong Yang

  2. Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Andrea Tao & Peidong Yang

Authors
  1. Andrea Tao
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  2. Prasert Sinsermsuksakul
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Correspondence to Peidong Yang.

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Tao, A., Sinsermsuksakul, P. & Yang, P. Tunable plasmonic lattices of silver nanocrystals. Nature Nanotech 2, 435–440 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2007.189

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