TY - JOUR
T1 - Feedback-driven self-assembly of symmetry-breaking optical metamaterials in solution
AU - Yang, Sui
AU - Ni, Xingjie
AU - Yin, Xiaobo
AU - Kante, Boubacar
AU - Zhang, Peng
AU - Zhu, Jia
AU - Wang, Yuan
AU - Zhang, Xiang
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge funding support from the National Science Foundation (NSF; grant no. DMR‐1344290) and the NSF Materials World Network (grant no. DMR-1210170). The authors also acknowledge facility support from Molecule Foundry at LBNL.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
PY - 2014/1/1
Y1 - 2014/1/1
N2 - Thermodynamically driven self-assembly offers a direct route to organize individual nanoscopic components into three-dimensional structures over a large scale1-3. The most thermodynamically favourable configurations, however, may not be ideal for some applications. In plasmonics, for instance, nanophotonic constructs with non-trivial broken symmetries can display optical properties of interest, such as Fano resonance, but are usually not thermodynamically favoured4. Here, we present a self-assembly route with a feedback mechanism for the bottom-up synthesis of a new class of symmetry-breaking optical metamaterials. We self-assemble plasmonic nanorod dimers with a longitudinal offset that determines the degree of symmetry breaking and its electromagnetic response. The clear difference in plasmonic resonance profiles of nanorod dimers in different configurations enables high spectra selectivity. On the basis of this plasmonic signature, our self-assembly route with feedback mechanism promotes the assembly of desired metamaterial structures through selective excitation and photothermal disassembly of unwanted assemblies in solution. In this fashion, our method can selectively reconfigure and homogenize the properties of the dimer, leading to highly monodispersed aqueous metamaterials with tailored symmetries and electromagnetic responses.
AB - Thermodynamically driven self-assembly offers a direct route to organize individual nanoscopic components into three-dimensional structures over a large scale1-3. The most thermodynamically favourable configurations, however, may not be ideal for some applications. In plasmonics, for instance, nanophotonic constructs with non-trivial broken symmetries can display optical properties of interest, such as Fano resonance, but are usually not thermodynamically favoured4. Here, we present a self-assembly route with a feedback mechanism for the bottom-up synthesis of a new class of symmetry-breaking optical metamaterials. We self-assemble plasmonic nanorod dimers with a longitudinal offset that determines the degree of symmetry breaking and its electromagnetic response. The clear difference in plasmonic resonance profiles of nanorod dimers in different configurations enables high spectra selectivity. On the basis of this plasmonic signature, our self-assembly route with feedback mechanism promotes the assembly of desired metamaterial structures through selective excitation and photothermal disassembly of unwanted assemblies in solution. In this fashion, our method can selectively reconfigure and homogenize the properties of the dimer, leading to highly monodispersed aqueous metamaterials with tailored symmetries and electromagnetic responses.
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U2 - 10.1038/nnano.2014.243
DO - 10.1038/nnano.2014.243
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84925962727
SN - 1748-3387
VL - 9
SP - 1002
EP - 1006
JO - Nature nanotechnology
JF - Nature nanotechnology
IS - 12
ER -