Abstract
We demonstrate a method to fabricate ultra-thin, ultra-smooth and low-loss silver (Ag) films using a very thin germanium (Ge) layer as a wetting material and a rapid post-annealing treatment. The addition of a Ge wetting layer greatly reduces the surface roughness of Ag films deposited on a glass substrate by electron-beam evaporation. The percolation threshold of Ag films and the minimal thickness of a uniformly continuous Ag film were significantly reduced using a Ge wetting layer in the fabrication. A rapid post-annealing treatment is demonstrated to reduce the loss of the ultra-thin Ag film to the ideal values allowed by the quantum size effect in smaller grains. Using the same wetting method, we have also extended our studies to ultra-smooth silver-silica lamellar composite films with ultra-thin Ag sublayers.
Highlights
Plasmonic materials are used in a variety of devices and are especially important in the recent boom of metamaterials
We demonstrate a method to fabricate ultra-thin, ultra-smooth and low-loss silver (Ag) films using a very thin germanium (Ge) layer as a wetting material and a rapid post-annealing treatment
The addition of a Ge wetting layer greatly reduces the surface roughness of Ag films deposited on a glass substrate by electron-beam evaporation
Summary
Plasmonic materials are used in a variety of devices and are especially important in the recent boom of metamaterials. In addition to planar lamellar superlens designs, the recent advanced theories and proofof-concept experimental studies of hyperlens-based devices [9,10,11,12, 15, 17] These hyperlens devices, including a magnifying planar hyperlenses and light concentrators [11], have provided us with a new perspective on magnifying subwavelength imaging using structures made of curvilinear, lamellar, metal-dielectric nanocomposite materials. Even with pure-metal superlenses, surface roughness limitations are problematic [2, 6], but hyperlens-type devices put forth even more demanding constraints on surface roughness in addition to the stringent requirements for control over the non-uniform thickness of individual curvilinear layers and most importantly over the minimal thickness of the continuous metal film. A rapid post-annealing method was explored for reducing the loss of the ultra-thin Ag films
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