Templated assembly of metal nanoparticle films on polymer substrates

Abstract

We report on directed self-assembly of ordered, vapor-deposited gallium nanoparticles on surface-relief-structured polymer substrates. Grating templates impose periodic order in one dimension, most effectively when the grating half-period is of the order of the mean unperturbed center-to-center particle spacing for a given mass-thickness of Ga. Self-organized order also emerges in the perpendicular direction as a consequence of the liquid-phase particles' nucleation, growth, and coalescence on the ridges of the grating pattern in relative isolation from the adjacent slots, and vice versa.

Plasmonic coupling in closed-packed ordered gallium nanoparticles

“…With the aim to advance in these applications, several recent works have reported different approaches that have improved the size distributions of Ga NPs using IR light 40,41 , corrugated Cu films 29 , polymer nanostructured templates 42 and even 2D materials 31 . Although in all the cases the NPs were aligned and the size distributions were more homogeneous, NPs of different sizes still coexist.…”