Light-responsive plasmonic arrays consisting of silver nanocubes and a photoisomerizable matrix.

TitleLight-responsive plasmonic arrays consisting of silver nanocubes and a photoisomerizable matrix.
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2015
AuthorsLedin, PA, Russell, M, Geldmeier, JA, Tkachenko, IM, Mahmoud, MA, Shevchenko, V, El-Sayed, MA, Tsukruk, VV
JournalACS Appl Mater Interfaces
Volume7
Issue8
Pagination4902-12
Date Published2015 Mar 4
ISSN1944-8252
Abstract

We report on the synthesis of novel branched organic-inorganic azo-polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) conjugates (Azo-POSS) and their use as a stable active medium to induce reversible plasmonic modulations of embedded metal nanostructures. A dense monolayer of silver nanocubes was deposited on a quartz substrate using the Langmuir-Blodgett technique and subsequently coated with an ultrathin Azo-POSS layer. The reversible light-induced photoisomerization between the trans and cis states of the azobenzene-terminated branched POSS material results in significant changes in the refractive index (up to 0.17) at a wavelength of 380 nm. We observed that the pronounced and reversible change in the surrounding refractive index results in a corresponding hypsochromic plasmonic shift of 6 nm in the plasmonic band of the embedded silver nanocubes. The reversible tuning of the plasmonic modes of noble-metal nanostructures using a variable-refractive-index medium opens up the possibility of fabricating photoactive, hybrid, ultrathin coatings with robust, real-time, photoinitiated responses for prospective applications in photoactive materials that can be reversibly tuned by light illumination.

DOI10.1021/am508993z
Custom 1

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25671557?dopt=Abstract

Alternate JournalACS Appl Mater Interfaces
PubMed ID25671557