Synthesis of Homogeneous Plasmonic Nanostructures for Generating Uniform and Reproducible Photonic Environments

Abstract

The preserved bosonic nature of surface plasmon polaritons from incident photons allows plasmonic nanomaterials to serve as effective photonic platforms. The strong light–matter interaction occurring at the surface concentrates light energy within a narrow region, thereby altering the local density of optical states. This modified photonic environment is typically expressed as near-field enhancement and improves the transition probability of nearby molecules or quantum emitters. However, despite the potential of plasmonic nanostructures to act as signal-transducers, issues in generating reproducible and consistent photonic responses with these platforms hinder their wide use for practical applications. As the parameters of plasmonic modulation are highly sensitive to even minor differences in surface morphology, a key origin of fluctuation in optical responses is the physical heterogeneity of the constituent nanostructures themselves. Therefore, although statistical and analytical techniques can obtain optically consistent signals from plasmonic nanostructures, the necessity of synthesizing uniform plasmonic nanostructures to achieve identical optical signals is becoming ever-more evident.