Ultrathin Wetting Layer-Free Plasmonic Gold Films

Journal Article · Thu Oct 03 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · ACS Photonics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acsphotonics.9b00907· OSTI ID:1616845

Lemasters, Robert ^[1]; Zhang, Cheng ^[2]; Manjare, Manoj ^[3]; Zhu, Wenqi ^[2]; Song, Junyeob ^[4]; Urazhdin, Sergei ^[3]; Lezec, Henri J. ^[5]; Agrawal, Amit ^[2]; Harutyunyan, Hayk ^[3]

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1. Emory Univ., Atlanta, GA (United States); Dept of Physics, Emory University
2. National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States); Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
3. Emory Univ., Atlanta, GA (United States)
4. National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States); Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States)
5. National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States)

Ultrathin gold films are enticing for plasmonic and metamaterial devices, thanks to their useful optical and optoelectronic properties. Yet, deposition of ultrathin continuous Au films of a few nanometer thickness is challenging and generally requires wetting layers, resulting in increased optical losses and incompatibility with optoelectronic device requirements. We demonstrate wetting layer-free plasmonic gold films with thicknesses down to 3 nm obtained by deposition on substrates cooled to cryogenic temperatures. We systematically study the effect of substrate temperature on the properties of the deposited Au films and show that substrate cooling suppresses the Volmer-Weber growth mode of Au, promoting early stage formation of continuous Au films with improved surface morphology and enhanced optoelectronic properties. Our results pave the way for straightforward implementation of ultrathin Au-based optoelectronic and plasmonic devices, as well as metamaterials and metasurfaces.

• Research Organization: Emory Univ., Atlanta, GA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0020101
• OSTI ID: 1616845
• Journal Information: ACS Photonics, Journal Name: ACS Photonics Journal Issue: 11 Vol. 6; ISSN 2330-4022
• Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
cryogenic deposition
gold
metamaterials
plasmonics
thin films