Spontaneous Self-Formation of 3D Plasmonic Optical Structures

Inhee Choi, Yonghee Shin, Jihwan Song, Soongweon Hong, Younggeun Park, Dongchoul Kim, Taewook Kang, Luke P. Lee

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

30 Scopus citations

Abstract

Self-formation of colloidal oil droplets in water or water droplets in oil not only has been regarded as fascinating fundamental science but also has been utilized in an enormous number of applications in everyday life. However, the creation of three-dimensional (3D) architectures by a liquid droplet and an immiscible liquid interface has been less investigated than other applications. Here, we report interfacial energy-driven spontaneous self-formation of a 3D plasmonic optical structure at room temperature without an external force. Based on the densities and interfacial energies of two liquids, we simulated the spontaneous formation of a plasmonic optical structure when a water droplet containing metal ions meets an immiscible liquid polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) interface. At the interface, the metal ions in the droplet are automatically reduced to form an interfacial plasmonic layer as the liquid PDMS cures. The self-formation of both an optical cavity and integrated plasmonic nanostructure significantly enhances the fluorescence by a magnitude of 1000. Our findings will have a huge impact on the development of various photonic and plasmonic materials as well as metamaterials and devices.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)7639-7645
Number of pages7
JournalACS Nano
Volume10
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 23 Aug 2016

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Grants AFOSR FA2386-13-1-4120 to L.P.L. and the International Research & Development Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (No. 2013K1A3A1A32035444) to Y.S. and T.K. This work was also supported by a Korea CCS R&D Center (KCRC) grant funded by the Korean government (Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning) (Grant No. 2015M1A8A1053539) to L.P.L., the National Science Foundation (EFRI-SEED grant award No. 1038279) to L.P.L. and Y.P., and a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by Korea government (MSIP) (No. 2014R1A2A2A09052374, 2013R1A1A2011263) to J.S. and D.K. This research was also supported by Leading Foreign Research Institute Recruitment Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (MSIP) (2013K1A4A3055268) and Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (2016R1A6A1A03012845) to T.K. This work was also supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (No. 2014R1A1A1038069) to I.C. We thank Prof. Youndoo Chung at University of Seoul for his support in the confocal laser scanning characterization experiments.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 American Chemical Society.

Keywords

  • interfacial energy
  • liquid droplets
  • nanoparticles
  • plasmonic optical cavity
  • plasmonic optical structures
  • self-formation

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