TY  - JOUR
A1  - Rothe, Martin
A1  - Zhao, Yuhang
A1  - Kewes, Günter
A1  - Kochovski, Zdravko
A1  - Sigle, Wilfried
A1  - van Aken, Peter A.
A1  - Koch, Christoph
A1  - Ballauff, Matthias
A1  - Lu, Yan
A1  - Benson, Oliver
T1  - Silver nanowires with optimized silica coating as versatile plasmonic resonators
JF  - Scientific reports
N2  - Metal nanoparticles are the most frequently used nanostructures in plasmonics. However, besides nanoparticles, metal nanowires feature several advantages for applications. Their elongation offers a larger interaction volume, their resonances can reach higher quality factors, and their mode structure provides better coupling into integrated hybrid dielectric-plasmonic circuits. It is crucial though, to control the distance of the wire to a supporting substrate, to another metal layer or to active materials with sub-nanometer precision. A dielectric coating can be utilized for distance control, but it must not degrade the plasmonic properties. In this paper, we introduce a controlled synthesis and coating approach for silver nanowires to fulfill these demands. We synthesize and characterize silver nanowires of around 70 nm in diameter. These nanowires are coated with nm-sized silica shells using a modified Stober method to achieve a homogeneous and smooth surface quality. We use transmission electron microscopy, dark-field microscopy and electron-energy loss spectroscopy to study morphology and plasmonic resonances of individual nanowires and quantify the influence of the silica coating. Thorough numerical simulations support the experimental findings showing that the coating does not deteriorate the plasmonic properties and thus introduce silver nanowires as usable building blocks for integrated hybrid plasmonic systems.
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-40380-5
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 9
PB  - Nature Publ. Group
CY  - London
ER  -