Optoplasmonic tuneable response by femtosecond laser irradiation of glass with deep-implanted gold nanoparticles
- Ion implantation of Au2+ at MeV energies has enabled the creation of nanoparticles embedded at greater depth, resulting in a Fabry-Perot cavity within the material.
- This dual, plasmonic and interferential behavior has been shown to be highly tunable by femtosecond laser irradiation, offering the possibility of locally changing the color, both towards more bluish and more reddish tones.
Madrid / November 28, 2024
Researchers from the Laser Processing Group of the Institute of Optics, the Department of Applied Physics and the Center for Materials Microanalysis of the Autonomous University of Madrid have published an article in the scientific journal Materials Today Nano in which they present the fabrication and subsequent study of a new nanocomposite with cutting-edge optical applications. This material, formed by a glass dielectric matrix doped with gold nanoparticles and then treated with a femtosecond laser, presents a new technique for the development of scalable and adjustable nanocomposites with applications in optics.
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Plasmonic nanocomposites, advanced materials that integrate metallic nanoparticles in a dielectric matrix, have emerged as key elements in various photonic technologies. The ability to control the optical properties of these nanocomposites in real time is of utmost importance for applications such as sensing, energy harvesting, color coding, and electronics.
The properties of plasmonic nanocomposites depend on several factors, including the composition and size, shape, and concentration of the nanoparticles from which they are manufactured, with virtually unlimited design potential.
It is also known that the properties of the nanocomposite change with the depth at which the nanoparticles are implanted, because if they are implanted at sufficient depth, light is partially reflected at the upper and lower interfaces of the implanted nanoparticles, colliding with each other successively and producing interference phenomena that modify their optical properties.
This phenomenon is known as Fabry-Perot interference.
The depth at which the gold nanoparticles have been implanted in the glass allows a Fabry-Perot cavity to form that favors the reflection of a particular color and prevents its transmission through it.
The study was carried out in several stages. First, 1.8 MeV Au2+ ions were implanted in commercial glass samples (1 cm2) using the CMAM’s 5 MV tandem linear accelerator. Implantation fluences of 1⋅1015 and 1⋅1016 ions per cm2 were used to ensure the formation of gold nanoparticles. The implanted samples were then subjected to thermal annealing at 500°C for 5 hours to promote clustering of the gold nanoparticles. After annealing, the samples were studied using various techniques, including Rutherford backscattering spectrometry to determine the depth distribution of the nanoparticles, transmission electron microscopy to see their shape, and optical spectroscopy to analyze the transmission and reflection properties of the material. Finally, a sapphire-titanium femtosecond laser from the IO-CSIC was used to irradiate the samples and modify their optical properties. Different irradiation regimes were explored, including single-pulse irradiation above and below the ablation threshold, as well as multiple-pulse irradiation at moderate fluences. After the femtosecond laser treatment, changes occurred in the sample coloration, topography, and optical properties.
Following the results of this work, the team intends to test this new nanocomposite manufacturing technique with materials other than glass (with different refractive indices) and under other dopant implantation conditions.
Article: Irene Solana, María Dolores Ynsa, Fátima Cabello, Fernando Chacón Sánchez, Jan Siegel, Mario García Lechuga. “Optoplasmonic tuneable response by femtosecond laser irradiation of glass with deep-implanted gold nanoparticles”. Materials Today Nano 28 (2024) 100526
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