Deposition of uniform plasmonic Ag nanoparticles by in-situ substrate heating using thermal evaporator

Abstract

In this work, silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were deposited on a heated glass substrate by using thermal evaporation technique without any additional annealing process. Ag NPs show stronger plasmonic increment of photoluminescence in comparison with other noble metals. The characterization techniques such as SEM, XRD, and UV-Vis. were used to analyse optical and morphological studies of these deposited metal NPs. Growth of nanospheres in Ag thin films were revealed by SEM. The substrate temperatures were varied from 150 °C, 250°C to 350 °C. Under some conditions, the Ag NPs exhibit a broad absorption in visible region. This is attributed to their LSPR effect i.e. Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance effect. Here, substrate temperature is the key parameter for controlling Ag NPs size and shapes.