Mechanically Tuning the Localized Surface Plasmon Resonances of Gold Nanostructure Arrays

Abstract

We report the fabrication of metal nanostructures on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate by transferring polystyrene beads onto PDMS substrate followed by metal deposition. Experimentally tuning the plasmon resonance of the metal nanostructures was demonstrated by stretching the patterned PDMS substrate. The distance between adjacent nanodisks affects the coupling between the disks, leading to a repeatable and reversible shift in the spectrum. The device can be valuable in many applications such as bio/chemical sensing, reconfigurable optics, and the study of coupled resonances.