Shape and material-engineered plasmonic nanostructures

Abstract

Plasmonic nanoparticles and nanostructures, engineered via precise control of material composition and geometry, offer unique optical properties with wide-ranging applications in sensing, imaging, and photonic devices. However, scalable and reliable fabrication remains a challenge for industrial integration. This talk presents two complementary, wafer-scale fabrication approaches: physical shadow growth and electrostatic nanoparticle coating. Shadow growth, a directional vacuum deposition method, enables the creation of diverse 3D nanostructures, from simple spheres to complex chiral and hybrid forms, by using nanoscale shadowing effects. Meanwhile, a proton-assisted electrostatic assembly technique allows rapid transfer of colloidal nanoparticles onto 2-inch wafers, achieving 40% monolayer coverage in just 10 seconds, nearly 100× faster than prior methods. These strategies offer scalable pathways for producing shape- and material-engineered nanostructures, with demonstrated applications in molecular sensing, cellular imaging, optical filtering, and photonic memory. The talk will highlight the fabrication principles and discuss their potential for enabling next-generation photonic systems.