Metallic nanoislands on graphene: a metamaterial for chemical, mechanical, optical, and biological applications

Abstract

Graphene decorated with metallic nanoparticles exhibits electronic, optical, and mechanical properties that neither the graphene nor the metal possess alone. These composite films have electrical conductivity and optical properties that can be modulated by a range of physical, chemical, and biological signals. Such properties are controlled by the morphology of the nanoisland films, which can be deposited on graphene using a variety of techniques, including in situ chemical synthesis and physical vapor deposition. These techniques produce non-random (though loosely defined) morphologies, but can be combined with lithography to generate deterministic patterns. Applications of these composite films include chemical sensing and catalysis, energy storage and transport (including photoconductivity), mechanical sensing (using a highly sensitive piezroresistive effect), optical sensing (including so-called “piezoplasmonic” effects), and cellular biophysics (i.e sensing the contractions of cardiomyocytes and myoblasts).

Gold Nano-Island Platforms for Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensing: A Short Review

“…For example, nano-islands deposited on single-layer graphene by physical vapor deposition or in situ, solution-phase chemical synthesis exhibit completely novel properties. For this reason, it has been called a composite film, which can be regarded a metamaterial [ 17 ]. The optical and electronic properties of this material, controlled by the morphology of nano-island films, are reminiscent of semiconductors.…”

Stereo Perfect Metamaterial Absorber Based on Standing Gear-Shaped Resonant Structure With Wide-Incident-Angle Stability

“…Electromagnetic (EM) metamaterials that consist meta-molecules arranged in an array of subwavelength pe have attracted intense attention due to their unique properties, such as negative refractive index [1] and inverse Doppler effects [2]. Recently, the perfect absorber has been closely related to metamaterials, which has potential applications in biological sciences [3], sensing [4,5], communications [6,7] and solar energy harvesting [8].…”

Physical process-aided fabrication of periodic Au–M (M = Ag, Cu, Ag–Cu) alloyed nanoparticle arrays with tunable localized surface plasmon resonance and diffraction peaks

“…Noble metal, such as Au, Ag and Cu, alloyed nanoparticles (NPs) have better comprehensive physical, chemical, and mechanical performance than their pure analogues due to synergistic effects of their constituent components. [1][2][3] In particular, localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) can readily be tuned by producing alloyed NPs, which expands their applications in many elds, [4][5][6][7][8][9] including bioimaging, catalytic, therapy, and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The LSPR properties of the alloyed NPs are closely related to content of each ingredient, size, and morphologies.…”