title: Optically Tunable Chiral Plasmonic Guest-Host Cellulose Films Weaved with Long-range Ordered Silver Nanowires.
abstract: Plasmonic materials with large chiroptical activity at visible wavelength have attracted considerable attention due to their potential applications in metamaterials. Here we demonstrate a novel guest-host chiral nematic liquid crystal film composed of bulk self-co-assembly of the dispersed plasmonic silver nanowires (AgNWs) and cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs). The AgNWs-CNCs composite films show strong plasmonic optical activities, that are dependent on the chiral photonic properties of the CNCs host medium and orientation of the guest AgNWs. Tunable chiral distribution of the aligned anisotropic AgNWs with long-range order is obtained through the CNCs liquid crystal mediated realignment. The chiral plasmonic optical activity of the AgNWs-CNCs composite films can be tuned by changing the interparticle electrostatic repulsion between the CNCs nanorods and AgNWs. We also observe an electromagnetic energy transfer phenomena among the plasmonic bands of AgNWs, due to the modulation of the photonic band gap of the CNCs host matrix. This facile approach for fabricating chiral macrostructured plasmonic materials with optically tunable property is of interest for a variety of advanced optics applications.
authors.affiliation: †State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, Jilin University, 2699 Qianjin Street, Changchun 130012, China.
authors.forename: Guang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.affiliation: ‡State Key Laboratory of Integrated Optoelectronics, College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University, 2699 Qianjin Street, Changchun 130012, China.
authors.forename: Xuesi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: †State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, Jilin University, 2699 Qianjin Street, Changchun 130012, China.
authors.forename: Tianrui
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: †State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, Jilin University, 2699 Qianjin Street, Changchun 130012, China.
authors.forename: Jianxiong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: §School of Petroleum and Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, 2 Dagong Road, New District of Liaodong Bay, Panjin 124221, China.
authors.forename: Fangyuan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gai
authors.affiliation: †State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, Jilin University, 2699 Qianjin Street, Changchun 130012, China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: †State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, Jilin University, 2699 Qianjin Street, Changchun 130012, China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xu
keywords: Cellulose nanocrystals; Chiroptical activity; Metamaterial; Plasmonic silver nanowires; Self-assembly