Bottom-up methods, like self-organization and chemical methods are future potential manufacturing methods for obtaining materials with plasmonic properties and metamaterials [1], [2], [3]. One of promising approaches for growth of self-organized metallodielectric micro- and nanostructures is based on directional solidification of eutectics. Eutectic materials due to their versatile properties, seem to be very promising in case of plasmonics. However there were not many experiments done in which metal-oxide eutectics were investigated.
Manufacturing of metallodielectric eutectic-based materials in a self-organization process is discussed. In current work metal-oxide eutectic, has been obtained and characterized. Eutectic was directionally solidified by the micro-pulling down method. This metallodielectric eutectic exhibits localized surface plasmon resonance at visible wavelengths [4]. The introduction of rare-earth ions to this eutectic material promotes the enhancement of important optical properties, like photoluminescence or up-conversion processes which could enable new functionalities in silicon-based solar cells.
[1] D. A. Pawlak, et.al., How far are we from making metamaterials by self-organization? The microstructure of highly anisotropic particles with an SRR-like geometry. Adv. Funct. Mat., 20, 1116, 2010
[2] C. Rockstuhl, T. Scharf, A metamaterial based on coupled metallic nanoparticles and its band-gap property, J. Microsc. 229, 2, 281, 2008
[3] N.I. Zheludev, The Road Ahead for Metamaterials, Science, 328, 582, 2010
[4] K. Sadecka, et.al., When eutectics meet plasmonics: Nanoplasmonic volumetric, self-organized silver-based eutectic, Adv. Opt. Mat., published online: 16 DEC 2014, DOI: 10.1002/adom. 201400425
katarzyna.sadecka@itme.edu.pl