Plasmonic Color Laser Printing inside Transparent Gold Nanodisk‐Embedded Poly(dimethylsiloxane) Matrices

• Published in: Advanced optical materials 2020-01, Vol.8 (1), p.n/a
• Main Authors: Cui, Ximin, Zhu, Xiaolong, Shao, Lei, Wang, Jianfang, Kristensen, Anders
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Color; Embedding; Gold; gold nanodisks; laser color printing; Laser printers; Lasers; Materials science; Optics; plasmonic colors; plasmons; poly(dimethylsiloxane); Polydimethylsiloxane; Spatial resolution; Stereoscopy; Substrates; Three dimensional printing
• ISSN: 2195-1071; 2195-1071
• DOI: 10.1002/adom.201901605

Plasmonic color generation from metal nanostructures has attracted intensive attention because of their excellence in achieving high spatial resolution, strong color contrast, and long‐term durability. The limited area of plasmonic patterns anchored on substrates and produced by current top‐down methods, however, severely restricts the advanced developments and potential applications in structural color display. Herein a robust method for realizing the laser printing of plasmonic colors inside transparent gold nanodisk‐embedded poly(dimethylsiloxane) matrices is presented. It is found that various colors can not only be easily generated by embedding gold nanodisks of different sizes, but also finely varied by adjusting the laser pulse intensity during printing. It is further demonstrated that multiple color layers can be laser‐printed at different depths. Stereoscopic images in the 3D matrices are laser‐printed with sizes as large as 12 × 15 mm2 and a resolution of 4600 dots per inch. A robust laser printing method is realized for the low‐cost fabrication of large‐area plasmonic patterns in 3D transparent matrices. Colloidal circular gold nanodisks are uniformly embedded inside poly(dimethylsiloxane) matrices with tailorable plasmonic colors. Both the morphological and spatial position of the embedded gold nanodisks can be finely manipulated through a stereo scanning of the laser spot.