Designed Nanoparticle-Mesoporous Multilayer Nanocomposites as Tunable Plasmonic Photonic Architectures for Electromagnetic Field Enhancement

MARTINEZ GAZONI, RODRIGO; BELLINO, MARTIN; FUERTES, CECILIA; GIMENEZ, GUSTAVO; SOLER-ILLIA, GALO; MARTINEZ RICCI, MARIA LUZ

Journal of Materials Chemistry C

RCS

Año: 2017 vol. 5 p. 3445 - 3455

2050-7534

In this work we present the designed production of a highly tunable nanocomposite ableto confine and enhance the electromagnetic field through the combined effects ofphotonic and plasmonic responses. Silver nanoparticles (NP) were embedded within aMesoporous Photonic Crystal (MPC) composed by a mesoporous multilayer presenting aTiO2-SiO2 unit cell. This nanosystem was synthesized by the combination of reproduciblesol-gel thin film techniques with the selective production of NP within the titania layers.The design of the MPC architecture was tuned so that each photonic band gap edgewould match the plasmonic absorption peak of the Ag NP, in order to combine theirconfined plasmonic enhancement with that of the band gap edges due to the multilayerstructure. We find that the MPC contributes to enhance the Surface Enhanced RamanScattering (SERS) signal of probe molecules trapped in the mesopores. This effectindicates the relevance of the unit cell interfaces for the local electromagnetic fieldenhancements, and opens the gate to perform plasmon-assisted SERS sensing. Theresulting material results in a promising platform to study the interplay between photonicand plasmonic systems. These tuneable nano-architectures are highly robust,reproducible, and can lead to applications in sensing platforms, as well as inoptoelectronics, enhanced photocatalysis, or artificial photosynthesis.