Laser Printing of Plasmonic Nanosponges

Abstract

Three-dimensional porous nanostructures made of noble metals represent novel class of nanomaterials promising for nonlinear nanooptics and sensors. Such nanostructures are typically fabricated using either reproducible yet time-consuming and costly multi-step lithography protocols or less reproducible chemical synthesis that involve liquid processing with toxic compounds. Here, we combined scalable nanosecond-laser ablation with advanced engineering of the chemical composition of thin substrate-supported Au films to produce nanobumps containing multiple nanopores inside. Most of the nanopores hidden beneath the nanobump surface can be further uncapped using gentle etching of the nanobumps by an Ar-ion beam to form functional 3D plasmonic nanosponges. The nanopores 10–150 nm in diameter were found to appear via laser-induced explosive evaporation/boiling and coalescence of the randomly arranged nucleation sites formed by nitrogen-rich areas of the Au films. Density of the nanopores can be controlled by the amount of the nitrogen in the Au films regulated in the process of their magnetron sputtering assisted with nitrogen-containing discharge gas.

Metallic nanosponges for energy storage and conversion applications

“…13c. 158 Firstly, using a custom made magnetron sputtering system with three discharge gases (Ar, N and purified air) Au films are deposited on the silica glass substrate without any adhesive sub-layer. Next, the nitrogen rich Au films are precisely ablated using ns-laser pulses generated from a Nd:YAG laser system to create parabolic nanobumps having a perforated nanostructure on the inside surface (Fig.…”

Laser Annealing of Gold Thin Films as a Platform for Plasmonic Sensing Applications

“…Laser annealing, on the other hand, is found to be a very fast, non-contact, and cost-effective technique to fabricate metallic nanostructures with intense plasmonic responses (15,16). Mainly, there are two possible mechanisms of surface annealing using lasers; the first is by utilizing UV lasers (17,18) and the second is by mid-infrared lasers (19).…”

Laser Synthesis of Nanomaterials

“…An approach for producing porous plasmonic nanostructures using direct ns-laser ablation followed by Ar-ion beam etching is reported in Ref. [ 10 ]. The nanopores were found to form through the explosive evaporation/boiling of the nitrogen-rich metal film areas irradiated by an ns laser pulse.…”