Tunable optical metamaterial based on liquid crystal-gold nanosphere composite

Effect of the surrounding anisotropic liquid crystal medium on the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) exhibited by concentrated suspensions of gold nanospheres has been investigated experimentally and compared with the Mie scattering theory. The observed polarization-sensitive SPR and the red-shift in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optics express 2009-10, Vol.17 (22), p.19459
Main Authors: Pratibha, R, Park, K, Smalyukh, I I, Park, W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Computer Simulation
Gold - chemistry
Light
Liquid Crystals - chemistry
Models, Chemical
Nanospheres - chemistry
Nanospheres - ultrastructure
Scattering, Radiation
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Summary:Effect of the surrounding anisotropic liquid crystal medium on the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) exhibited by concentrated suspensions of gold nanospheres has been investigated experimentally and compared with the Mie scattering theory. The observed polarization-sensitive SPR and the red-shift in the SPR wavelength with increasing concentration of the gold nanospheres in the liquid crystal matrix have been explained using calculations based on the Maxwell Garnet effective medium theory. Agglomeration of the gold nanospheres that could also lead to such a red-shift has been ruled out using Atomic force microscopy study of thin nanoparticle-doped smectic films obtained on solid substrates. Our study demonstrates feasibility of obtaining tunable optical bulk metamaterials based on smectic liquid crystal - nanoparticle composites.
ISSN:1094-4087
1094-4087
DOI:10.1364/OE.17.019459