Abstract
Abstract Anisotropy has played a critical role in many material systems, but its controllable creation and modulation have been a long-lasting challenge for the scientific communities. Polarization-addressed anisotropy appears more attractive among all approaches due to its excellent controllability, simplicity, and accuracy, but only a limited number of material systems are applicable for such a concept, which are largely focused on oriented growth. Here, we establish a polarization-dependent anisotropic etching system made of Au@oligomer core–shell nanoparticles (NPs). As the oligomer coatings can be photochemically degraded via two-photon photolithography, the plasmonic near-field enhancement supported by the Au NP cores renders much faster degradation of the oligomer shells along the polarization, resulting in anisotropic Au@oligomer hybrid NPs. Such shape anisotropy leads to polarization-dependent photoluminescence with embedded dyes of methylene blue, which can be used as single-particle-based polarization detector. The oligomer lobes capped at the sides of the Au NP can also function as a protection agent for anisotropic photochemical growth of Au NPs, which evolve into Au nanorods and mushrooms with controlled irradiation time. Such polarization-directed etching of oligomer shells has unique advantages of high local-selectivity, controllability, and versatility for on-chip nanofabrication, which opens many new opportunities for integrated nanophotonic devices.
Highlights
Anisotropic nanoparticles (NPs) have attracted great research interests due to their pivotal role in material performances, which can potentially lead to compelling electric, photonic, mechanical, and biological functionalities [1]
Polarization-addressed anisotropy appears more attractive among all approaches due to its excellent controllability, simplicity, and accuracy, but only a limited number of material systems are applicable for such a concept, which are largely focused on oriented growth
As the oligomer coatings can be photochemically degraded via two-photon photolithography, the plasmonic near-field enhancement supported by the Au NP cores renders much faster degradation of the oligomer shells along the polarization, resulting in anisotropic Au@oligomer hybrid NPs
Summary
Anisotropic nanoparticles (NPs) have attracted great research interests due to their pivotal role in material performances, which can potentially lead to compelling electric, photonic, mechanical, and biological functionalities [1]. Conventional synthetic approach via wet chemistry largely relies on facet control or ligand functionalization, which kinetically forms anisotropic NPs [2, 3]. This chemical approach is capable of yielding a batch of NPs in a scalable manner, the uniformity and the reproducibility are not always robust, and such a batch of dispersion does not present any anisotropic properties as an entity due to the randomness of the NPs therein. Several interesting demonstration of polarization-induced material modification can lead to oriented nanostructures, most of them are beyond the diffraction limit of light with sizes over a few microns [13,14,15,16]. Most of the prior arts are based on polarizationdirected polymerization with high material constraint, and
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