Templated deposition of multiscale periodic metallic nanodot arrays with sub-10 nm gaps on rigid and flexible substrates

Abstract

Multiscale metallic nanostrucutures, which support hybrid coupling of plasmon resonances, are essential for the engineering of plasmonic devices. The fabrication of large area periodic multiscale structures still remains a challenge, considering the cost and efficiency. In this work, highly ordered multiscale Ag nanoarrays with lateral dimensions of up to 6 mm × 6 mm have been successfully fabricated on both rigid silicon and flexible polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate by thermal evaporation using ultrathin anodic aluminum oxide films as masks. Owing to the peculiarities of thermal evaporation and the variance of substrate surface energy, the unit cell of the periodic arrays consist of a core-satellite structure on silicon and randomly distributed child particles on PDMS, with gaps as small as 10 nm. The flexible Ag nanoarrays on PDMS demonstrate a broadband extraordinary optical transmission with an enhancement up to 2.7 times when normalized to the exposed area. Moreover, the transmission and diffraction properties can readily be controlled by stretching the PDMS. These tunable optical properties support the multiscale Ag nanoarrays to be applied in some optical and optoelectronic devices.