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Dichroic Optical Properties of Uniaxially Oriented Gold Nanorods in Polymer Films

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An Erratum to this article was published on 15 February 2014

Abstract

Applications based on the optical excitation of the longitudinal surface plasmon resonance of gold nanorods (AuNRs) work at highest efficiency if all component AuNRs can be maximally excited simultaneously. This can be achieved in aligned AuNR structures, such as those embedded in uniaxially stretched polymer films. Since too high heating temperatures during film stretching cause reshaping and alteration of optical properties of the rods, a maximum allowable heating temperature is determined. The alignment of the rods is quantified by an orientational order parameter of 0.92 based on a statistically significant sample of assumed t distributed means and obtained by scanning electron microscopy. We show that a stretched AuNRs-PVA composite film has optical properties that approach the dichroic properties of an idealized ensemble of fully aligned, identical, and non-interacting AuNRs embedded in a PVA film. The idealized system is provided by FDTD simulations of a single AuNR, which we carried out using the size- and shape-adapted dielectric function of gold and the software RSOFT.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to warmly thank Nicole A. MacDonald, physicist of Le Centre de Caractérisation Microscopique des Matériaux, Montreal, for her skillful efforts in taking the SEM images of the nanorods. Many thanks as well to Alex MacPherson and Juan Alfara of the Engineering Design and Manufacturing Laboratories of Concordia University for a crash course in SolidWorks and for manufacturing the device for stretching polymer films, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Concordia University, EV 4.219, 1515 Ste—Catherine West, Montreal, QC, H3G 2W1, Canada

    Stefan Stoenescu & Muthukumaran Packirisamy

  2. Department of Physics, Concordia University, Loyola Science Complex 7141 Sherbrooke West, Montreal, QC, H4B 1R6, Canada

    Vo-Van Truong

Authors
  1. Stefan Stoenescu
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  2. Vo-Van Truong
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  3. Muthukumaran Packirisamy
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stefan Stoenescu.

Appendix

Appendix

A device for uniaxially stretching polymer films was designed as shown in Fig. 8.

Fig. 8
figure 8

a Exploded drawing of the device for stretching polymer films. b Photograph of a stretched AuNR-PVA composite film still clamped in the device and allowed to dry at room temperature for 24 h

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The device was manufactured of aluminum paying attention not to generate stress concentration factors, such as sharp notches or scratches, in order to reduce the fracture risks of the composite film. The device was designed to be operated manually, which should enable a better control of the stretching process. This could be achieved by increasing or just maintaining the tensile stress in the film to allow for the disentanglement of the polymer chains until the desired stretch ratio is reached.

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Stoenescu, S., Truong, VV. & Packirisamy, M. Dichroic Optical Properties of Uniaxially Oriented Gold Nanorods in Polymer Films. Plasmonics 9, 299–307 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-013-9623-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-013-9623-x

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