Sacrificial polymer thin-film template with tunability to construct high-density Au nanoparticle arrays and their refractive index sensing.
Great challenges still remain to assemble metal nanoparticles on a substrate with tunability, high density, robust stability, good dispersion and well-retained properties for various applications. Herein a new concept using a polymer thin-film as a sacrificial template is investigated to fabricate highly dense and well-dispersed nanoparticle arrays. In contrast to a conventional "hard" template, the polymer template is a porous multilayered film allowing in situ growth of Au nanoparticles with a restricted ripening mode, and tuning the nanoparticle size and density of the arrays is possible by simply adjusting the loading conditions. The prepared substrate-attached nanoparticle arrays demonstrate good thermal and chemical stability, while offering highly sensitive and tunable localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) refractive index sensing with a broad linear dynamic range. This method could be extended to controllably fabricate other robust and "clean" nanoparticle arrays on various substrates for various applications including sensing, catalysis and optoelectronics.
Institute for Clean Energy & Advanced Materials, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China. ecmli@swu.edu.cn.
Weiyong
W
Yuan
Zhisong
Z
Lu
Huili
H
Wang
Chang Ming
CM
Li