Perfectly Flat? Plasmonic devices, which exploit the interactions of light with surface electrons, show great promise for applications in sensing, communications, and energy conversion. A key hindrance is deposition patterned metals used plasmonics, because, as deposited, terminal surfaces are rough not amenable to patterning by directional dry-etching techniques. Nagpal et al. (p. 594 ) use silicon substrates on they add gold, silver, or copper then apply an epoxy layer deposited metal....

Nanometric gaps in noble metals can harness surface plasmons, collective excitations of the conduction electrons, for extreme subwavelength localization electromagnetic energy. Positioning molecules within such metallic nanogaps dramatically enhances light-matter interactions, increasing absorption, emission, and, most notably, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). However, lack reproducible high-throughput fabrication techniques with nanometric control over gap size has limited...

The authors report a combination of the enhanced transmission effect and shape resonances in periodic array nanoscale double-hole structures gold film to enhance detection sensitivity surface plasmon biosensors. Finite-difference time-domain calculations are used quantify field enhancement at apexes structure. was measure formation self-assembled monolayer for real-time sensing protein adsorption onto surface. This result demonstrates potential integrate propagating plasmons localized improve

Inexpensive, reproducible, and high-throughput fabrication of nanometric apertures in metallic films can benefit many applications plasmonics, sensing, spectroscopy, lithography, imaging. Here we use template-stripping to pattern periodic nanohole arrays optically thick, smooth Ag with a silicon template made via nanoimprint lithography. is low-cost material good optical properties, but it suffers from poor chemical stability biocompatibility. However, thin silica shell encapsulating our...

We demonstrate enhanced power conversion efficiency in organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells incorporated into a plasmonic nanocavity array. The array is formed between patterned Ag anode and an unpatterned Al cathode. This structure leads to the confinement of optical energy absorption OPV. Devices characterized under simulated solar illumination show 3.2-fold increase compared OPVs with anodes. observed enhancement also reflected external quantum efficiency, spectral response consistent...

We demonstrate three-dimensional plasmonic nanofocusing of light with patterned metallic pyramids obtained via template stripping. Gratings on the faces these convert linearly polarized into plasmons that propagate toward and converge at a approximately 10 nm apex. Experiments computer simulations confirm optical energy is focused nanoscale volume (5 x 10(-5) wavelength(3)). Because structures are easily reproducibly fabricated, our results could benefit many applications, including imaging,...

We present a simple and massively parallel nanofabrication technique to produce self-assembled periodic nanohole arrays over millimeter-sized area of metallic film, with tunable hole shape, diameter, periodicity. Using this method, 30 × μm2 defect-free areas 300 nm diameter or smaller holes were obtained in silver; threshold is critical because it larger than the visible wavelength propagation length surface plasmon waves (∼27 μm) silver film. Measured optical transmission spectra show...

With a template-stripping fabrication technique, we demonstrate the mass of high-quality, uniform, ultrasharp (10 nm) metallic probes suitable for single-molecule fluorescence imaging, tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS), and other near-field imaging techniques. We achieve reproducible with sub-20-nm spatial resolution an enhancement in detected signal up to 200. Similar results are obtained TERS carbon nanotubes. show that large apex angle (70.5°) our pyramidal tip is well suited scatter...

Integration of solid-state biosensors and lipid bilayer membranes is important for membrane protein research drug discovery. In these sensors, it critical that the sensing material does not have adverse effects on conformation or functionality membrane-bound molecules. this work, pore-spanning are formed over an array periodic nanopores in free-standing gold films surface plasmon resonance (SPR) kinetic binding assays. The ability to perform assays with a transmembrane demonstrated...

A simple route to flat, large-area, single-crystalline films for plasmonics is demonstrated by sputter deposition of silver onto mica substrates at elevated temperatures. The exhibit improved dielectric properties and allow more precise patterning high-quality nanostructures plasmonic applications. Detailed facts importance specialist readers are published as "Supporting Information". Such documents peer-reviewed, but not copy-edited or typeset. They made available submitted the authors....

The concept of plasmonic "hotspots" is central to the broad field nanophotonics. In surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), hotspots can increase efficiency by orders magnitude. Hotspot dimensions may range from a few nanometers down atomic scale and are able generate SERS signals single molecules. However, these single-molecule often show significant fluctuations, intense, localized, yet static has come into question. Recent experiments have shown intensity fluctuations (SIFs) occur over...

We present nanohole arrays in thin gold films as sub-micron resolution surface plasmon resonance (SPR) imaging pixels a microarray format. With SPR imaging, the is not limited by diffraction, but propagation of waves to adjacent sensing areas, or arrays, causing unwanted interference. For ultimate scalability, several issues need be addressed, including: (1) are brought close each other, interference introduces large sources error; and (2) size array reduced, i.e. fewer holes, detection...

We propose a method of optical data storage that exploits the small dimensions metallic nano-particles and/or nano-structures to achieve high densities. The resonant behavior these particles (both individually and in clusters) presence ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared light may be used retrieve pre-recorded information by far-field spectroscopic detection. In plasmonic storage, very short (approximately few femtoseconds) laser pulse is focused diffraction-limited spot over region an disk...

We present nanohole arrays in a gold film integrated with six-channel microfluidic chip for parallel measurements of molecular binding kinetics. Surface plasmon resonance effects the enable real-time, label-free events each channel, while adjacent negative reference channels can record measurement artifacts such as bulk solution index changes, temperature variations, or changing light absorption liquid. With use this platform, streptavidin−biotin specific kinetics are measured at various...

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) imaging is a powerful technique for high-throughput, real-time, label-free characterization of molecular interactions in microarray format. In this paper, we demonstrate SPR with nanohole arrays illuminated by laser source. Periodic nanoholes couple incident photons into SPs, obviating the need prism used conventional instruments, while source provides intensity, stability and spectral coherence to improve detection sensitivity. The formation self-assembled...

Fabricating plasmonic nanostructures with robust optical and chemical properties remains a challenging task, especially silver, which has superior but poor environmental stability. In this work, conformal atomic layer deposition (ALD) of thin alumina overlayers is used to precisely tune the transmission periodic nanohole arrays made in gold silver films. Experiments computer simulations confirm that ALD optimized thicknesses enhance transmitted intensity due refractive index matching effects...

With recent advances in high-throughput proteomics and systems biology, there is a growing demand for new instruments that can precisely quantify wide range of receptor–ligand binding kinetics fashion. Here we demonstrate surface plasmon resonance (SPR) imaging spectroscopy instrument capable simultaneously extracting affinities from 50 parallel microfluidic channels. The utilizes large-area (∼ cm2) metallic nanohole arrays as SPR sensing substrates combines broadband light source,...

We demonstrate dynamic trapping and manipulation of nanoparticles with plasmonic holograms. By tailoring the illumination pattern an incident light beam a computer-controlled spatial modulator, constructive destructive interference plasmon waves create focused hotspot that can be moved across surface. Specifically, computer-generated hologram illuminating perimeter silver Bull's Eye nanostructure generates surface plasmons propagate toward center. Shifting phase as function space gives...

We present a novel plasmonic antenna structure, split-wedge antenna, created by splitting an ultrasharp metallic wedge with nanogap perpendicular to its apex. The can tightly confine gap plasmons and boost the local optical field intensity in around these opposing tips. This three-dimensional integrates key features of nanogaps sharp tips, i.e., tight confinement nanofocusing, respectively, into single platform. fabricate antennas gaps that are as small 1 nm width at wafer scale combining...

We demonstrate super-resolution chemical imaging with plasmonic nanoholes via surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Due to large field enhancements, blinking behavior of SERS hot spots was observed and processed using a stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM) algorithm. This enabled localization within 10 nm high-resolution imaging. However, illumination the sample static laser beam produced only in fixed locations, leaving noticeable gaps final images. By randomly...