Architecture and Decoration at the Nanoscale: programmable plasmonic and photonic thin film nanosystems through soft chemistry

G. J. A. A. SOLER ILLIA

Seminario; Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies; 2019

In the last years, soft chemical synthetic methods opened the path to create highly tunablethin film architectures, with complex yet controlled structure at different length scales. Opticalnanosystems ?decorated? with molecular, biological or nanoscale functions precisely locatedin space can be pre-designed and produced through the production and controlled assembly ofnanobuilding blocks. In particular, Mesoporous Thin Films (MTF) are interesting for theirtailorable optical, electronic or catalytic properties, and their compatibility with therequirements of electronics and optics industry. Each MTF is in turn a building block for morecomplex architectures with synergic properties derived from the control of the spatial locationof well-controlled components.We will present MTF architectures with programmable optical properties, in particularMesoporous Photonic Crystals (MPC) and Nanoparticle-Mesoporous Nanocomposites (NMNC).These materials permit to harness and couple chemical and surface properties with photonicand plasmonic features of the ensemble. We can design and build stimuli-responsiveautonomous systems that transduce chemical signals to optical response through informationencoded in their structure at the molecular, mesoscopic or microscopic levels. Thecombination of the photonic and plasmonic properties of MPC and NMNC permits to exploitlight confinement or amplification. These responsive nanosystems present applications inSERS, Tamm-based sensors, optical waveguides or photocatalysts.