title: Connecting Metallic Nanoparticles by Optical Printing.
abstract: Optical printing is a simple and flexible method to bring colloidal nanoparticles from suspension to specific locations of a substrate. However, its application has been limited to the fabrication of arrays of isolated nanoparticles because, until now, it was never possible to bring nanoparticles closer together than approximately 300 nm. Here, we propose this limitation is due to thermophoretic repulsive forces generated by plasmonic heating of the NPs. We show how to overcome this obstacle and demonstrate the optical printing of connected nanoparticles with well-defined orientation. These experiments constitute a key step toward the fabrication by optical printing of functional nanostructures and microcircuits based on colloidal nanoparticles.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones en Bionanociencias (CIBION), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Godoy Cruz 2390, C1425FQD Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: Julián
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gargiulo
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones en Bionanociencias (CIBION), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Godoy Cruz 2390, C1425FQD Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: Santiago
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cerrota
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones en Bionanociencias (CIBION), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Godoy Cruz 2390, C1425FQD Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: Emiliano
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cortés
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones en Bionanociencias (CIBION), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Godoy Cruz 2390, C1425FQD Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: Ianina L
authors.initials: IL
authors.lastname: Violi
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones en Bionanociencias (CIBION), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Godoy Cruz 2390, C1425FQD Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.|Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires , Güiraldes 2620, C1428EAH Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: Fernando D
authors.initials: FD
authors.lastname: Stefani
keywords: Optical forces; gold nanoparticle; laser tweezers; optical manipulation; silver nanoparticle; thermophoresis