Plasmon-enhanced structural coloration of metal films with isotropic Pinwheel nanoparticle arrays

Plasmonic Colour Printing by Light Trapping in Two-Metal Nanostructures

Structural colour generation by nanoscale plasmonic structures is of major interest for non-bleaching colour printing, anti-counterfeit measures and decoration applications. We explore the physics of a two-metal plasmonic nanostructure consisting of metallic nanodiscs separated from a metallic back-reflector by a uniform thin polymer film and investigate the potential for vibrant structural colour in reflection. We demonstrate that light trapping within the nanostructures is the primary mechanism for colour generation. The use of planar back-reflector and polymer layers allows for less complex fabrication requirements and robust structures, but most significantly allows for the easy incorporation of two different metals for the back-reflector and the nanodiscs. The simplicity of the structure is also suitable for scalability. Combinations of gold, silver, aluminium and copper are considered, with wide colour gamuts observed as a function of the polymer layer thickness. The structural colours are also shown to be insensitive to the viewing angle. Structures of copper nanodiscs with an aluminium back-reflector produce the widest colour gamut.

High-Density Plasmonic Nanoparticle Arrays Deposited on Nanoporous Anodic Alumina Templates for Optical Sensor Applications

This study demonstrates a new, robust, and accessible deposition technique of metal nanoparticle arrays (NPAs), which uses nanoporous anodic alumina (NAA) as a template for capillary force-assisted convective colloid (40, 60, and 80 nm diameter Au) assembly. The NPA density and nanoparticle size can be independently tuned by the anodization conditions and colloid synthesis protocols. This enables production of non-touching variable-density NPAs with controllable gaps in the 20-60 nm range. The NPA nearest neighbor center distance in the present study was fixed to 100 nm by the choice of anodization protocol. The obtained Au NPAs have the resonant scattering maxima in the visible spectral range, with a refractometric sensitivity, which can be tuned by the variation of the array density. The thickness of the NAA layer in an Aluminum-NAA-NPA multilayer system enables further tuning of the resonance frequency and optimization for use with specific molecules, e.g., to avoid absorption bands. Applicability of the mentioned multilayers for colorimetric refractive index (RI) sensing is demonstrated. Their use as Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) substrates is tested using hemoglobin as a biological probe molecule.

Angle-insensitive plasmonic color filters with randomly distributed silver nanodisks

Plasmonic color filters inherently suffer from angular sensitiveness, which hinder them from practical applications. Here, we present a plasmonic subtractive color filter incorporating two-dimensional randomly distributed silver nanodisks on top of a glass substrate. Due to the elimination of structural periodicity, the proposed plasmonic color filter works via localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) and thus enables excellent angle-insensitive (up to 60°) performance. In addition, uncoupled LSPRs between nanodisks guarantee stability and reproducibility of the color filter. Finally, a palette of colors across the visible region was obtained with the proposed color filters by simply varying the diameter of nanodisks, exhibiting a promising and robust applicability in digital imaging and sensing industries.

Microfluidics integration of aperiodic plasmonic arrays for spatial-spectral optical detection

We demonstrate successful integration of aperiodic arrays of metal nanoparticles with microfluidics technology for optical sensing using the spectral-colorimetric responses of nanostructured arrays to refractive index variations. Different aperiodic arrays of gold (Au) nanoparticles with varying interparticle separations and Fourier spectral properties are fabricated using Electron Beam Lithography (EBL) and integrated with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidics structures by soft-lithographic micro-imprint techniques. The spectral shifts of scattering spectra and the distinctive modifications of structural color patterns induced by refractive index variations were simultaneously measured inside microfluidic flow cells by dark-field spectroscopy and image correlation analysis in the visible spectral range. The integration of engineered aperiodic arrays of Au nanoparticles with microfluidics devices provides a novel sensing platform with multiplexed spatial-spectral responses for opto-fluidics applications and lab-on-a-chip optical biosensing.

Printing colour at the optical diffraction limit

The highest possible resolution for printed colour images is determined by the diffraction limit of visible light. To achieve this limit, individual colour elements (or pixels) with a pitch of 250 nm are required, translating into printed images at a resolution of ∼100,000 dots per inch (d.p.i.). However, methods for dispensing multiple colourants or fabricating structural colour through plasmonic structures have insufficient resolution and limited scalability. Here, we present a non-colourant method that achieves bright-field colour prints with resolutions up to the optical diffraction limit. Colour information is encoded in the dimensional parameters of metal nanostructures, so that tuning their plasmon resonance determines the colours of the individual pixels. Our colour-mapping strategy produces images with both sharp colour changes and fine tonal variations, is amenable to large-volume colour printing via nanoimprint lithography, and could be useful in making microimages for security, steganography, nanoscale optical filters and high-density spectrally encoded optical data storage.

Plasmonic-photonic arrays with aperiodic spiral order for ultra-thin film solar cells

We report on the design, fabrication and measurement of ultra-thin film Silicon On Insulator (SOI) Schottky photo-detector cells with nanostructured plasmonic arrays, demonstrating broadband enhanced photocurrent generation using aperiodic golden angle spiral geometry. Both golden angle spiral and periodic arrays of various center-to-center particle spacing were investigated to optimize the photocurrent enhancement. The primary photocurrent enhancement region is designed for the spectral range 600nm-950nm, where photon absorption in Si is inherently poor. We demonstrate that cells coupled to spiral arrays exhibit higher photocurrent enhancement compared to optimized periodic gratings structures. The findings are supported through coupled-dipole numerical simulations of radiation diagrams and finite difference time domain simulations of enhanced absorption in Si thin-films.