Tuning the plasmonic properties of silver nanopatterns fabricated by shadow nanosphere lithography

Regular silver (Ag) nanopatterns, from disconnected nanotriangles to well coupled triangular clusters of nanoparticles, were prepared by shadow nanosphere lithography at different incident angles θ from 0 degrees to 20 degrees with continuous azimuthal rotation. The resulting nanopatterns were consistent with predictions by numerical calculations and Monte Carlo simulations of adatoms with high diffusivity. The visible localized surface plasmon resonance of these nanopatterns was tuned by θ systematically due to the change in size, shape, and arrangement of Ag nanopatterns. These resonances were consistent with finite-difference time-domain simulations using realistic nanopatterns based upon scanning electron micrographs. Such a simple fabrication strategy can be used to optimize surface enhanced Raman scattering substrate fabrication, as well as other plasmonics based applications

An SIRS Epidemic Model Incorporating Media Coverage with Time Delay

An SIRS epidemic model incorporating media coverage with time delay is proposed. The positivity and boundedness are studied firstly. The locally asymptotical stability of the disease-free equilibrium and endemic equilibrium is studied in succession. And then, the conditions on which periodic orbits bifurcate are given. Furthermore, we show that the local Hopf bifurcation implies the global Hopf bifurcation after the second critical value of the delay. The obtained results show that the time delay in media coverage can not affect the stability of the disease-free equilibrium when the basic reproduction number R0<1. However, when R0>1, the stability of the endemic equilibrium will be affected by the time delay; there will be a family of periodic orbits bifurcating from the endemic equilibrium when the time delay increases through a critical value. Finally, some examples for numerical simulations are also included

High-Resolution Contact Printing with Chemically Patterned Flat Stamps Fabricated by Nanoimprint Lithography

Chemically patterned flat stamps provide an effective solution to avoid mechanical stamp-stability problems currently encountered in microcontact printing. A new method is developed to fabricate chemical patterns on a flat PDMS stamp using nanoimprint lithography. Sub-100 nm gold patterns are successfully replicated by these chemically patterned flat PDMS stamps. \ud \u