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Electrotunable nanoplasmonic liquid mirror

Nature Materials volume 16, pages 1127–1135 (2017)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 10 May 2019

Abstract

Recently, there has been a drive to design and develop fully tunable metamaterials for applications ranging from new classes of sensors to superlenses among others. Although advances have been made, tuning and modulating the optical properties in real time remains a challenge. We report on the first realization of a reversible electrotunable liquid mirror based on voltage-controlled self-assembly/disassembly of 16 nm plasmonic nanoparticles at the interface between two immiscible electrolyte solutions. We show that optical properties such as reflectivity and spectral position of the absorption band can be varied in situ within ±0.5 V. This observed effect is in excellent agreement with theoretical calculations corresponding to the change in average interparticle spacing. This electrochemical fully tunable nanoplasmonic platform can be switched from a highly reflective ‘mirror’ to a transmissive ‘window’ and back again. This study opens a route towards realization of such platforms in future micro/nanoscale electrochemical cells, enabling the creation of tunable plasmonic metamaterials.

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Figure 1: Nanoplasmonic liquid mirror strategies.
Figure 2: Electrochemical set-up and characterization.
Figure 3: Dynamics of assembly and disassembly of 16-nm-diameter MDDA-functionalized gold NPs at the ITIES interface.
Figure 4: Voltage-controlled plasmon ruler utilizing 16-nm-diameter MDDA-functionalized gold NPs at the ITIES interface.
Figure 5: Switchable window–mirror.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank F. Bresme, A. Fedosyuk, M. Flatte, H. Girault, D. J. O’Lee, G. Oshanin, O. Robotham and M. Urbakh for useful discussions. The work was mainly supported by a grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council UK, ‘Electrotuneable Molecular Alarm’, EP/L02098X/1. J.B.E. also acknowledges receipt of European Research Council starting (NanoP) and consolidator grants (NanoPD). L.V. acknowledges the support of a Marie Skodowska-Curie fellowship (N-SHEAD).

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Author notes

  1. Debabrata Sikdar

    Present address: Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, Assam, 781 039, India

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, UK

    Yunuen Montelongo, Debabrata Sikdar, Ye Ma, Alastair J. S. McIntosh, Leonora Velleman, Anthony R. Kucernak, Joshua B. Edel & Alexei A. Kornyshev

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Contributions

Y.Montelongo obtained all data for optical and electrochemical measurements, D.S. carried out all theoretical calculations in feedback mode with experiments; Y.Montelongo and D.S. treated the data. Y.Ma and L.V. synthesized the NPs, A.J.S.M. helped in designing and building the electrochemical set-up. Y.Ma performed analysis of NPs as included in the Supplementary Information. All authors contributed to discussions, interpretation of results and aided in drafting the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Anthony R. Kucernak, Joshua B. Edel or Alexei A. Kornyshev.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Montelongo, Y., Sikdar, D., Ma, Y. et al. Electrotunable nanoplasmonic liquid mirror. Nature Mater 16, 1127–1135 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4969

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