Pushing the High-Energy Limit of Plasmonics

The localized surface plasmon resonance of metal nanoparticles allows confining the eletromagnetic field in nanosized volumes, creating high-field “hot spots”, most useful for enhanced nonlinear optical spectroscopies. The commonly employed metals, Au and Ag, yield plasmon resonances only spanning the visible/near-infrared range. Stretching upward, the useful energy range of plasmonics requires exploiting different materials. Deep-ultraviolet plasmon resonances happen to be achievable with one of the cheapest and most abundant materials available: aluminum indeed holds the promise of a broadly tunable plasmonic response, theoretically extending far into the deep-ultraviolet. Complex nanofabrication and the unavoidable Al oxidation have so far prevented the achievement of this ultimate high-energy response. A nanofabrication technique producing purely metallic Al nanoparticles has at last allowed to overcome these limits, pushing the plasmon resonance to 6.8 eV photon energy (≈180 nm) and thus significantly broadening the spectral range of plasmonics’ numerous applications

Mercury Segregation and Diselenide Self-Assembly on Gold

We have investigated the self-assembly of didecyldiselenide on gold containing mercury using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry and infrared spectroscopy. The analysis of intensity and chemical shift of selected Se, Hg, and Au photoelectron lines on samples with increasing Hg content, show that didecyldiselenide adsorption strongly contributed to segregation of bulk Hg to the surface. The voltammetry results support this conclusion and suggest the formation of Hg–Au surface amalgam. The Hg surface segregation effect must be related to the restructuring of the surface following initial adsorption, and to the strong selenophilicity of Hg. The reflectance absorbance infrared spectroscopy studies show that the molecular layer on Hg–Au substrates lacks good order

Deep Ultraviolet Plasmon Resonance in Aluminum Nanoparticle Arrays

Small aluminum nanoparticles have the potential to exhibit localized surface plasmon resonances in the deep ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum, however technical and scientific challenges make it difficult to attain this limit. We report the fabrication of arrays of Al/Al₂O₃ core/shell nanoparticles with a metallic-core diameter between 12 and 25 nm that display sharp plasmonic resonances at very high energies, up to 5.8 eV (down to λ = 215 nm). The arrays were fabricated by means of a straightforward self-organization approach. The experimental spectra were compared with theoretical calculations that allow the correlation of each feature to the corresponding plasmon modes