Last modified: 2009-11-07
Abstract
A range of plasmonic nanostructures are fabricated on stretchable elastomeric substrates. Such nanostructures support plasmons which have energies and field distributions that are strongly dependent on the structure geometry or positions. The stretchability of elastomer substrates allows for reproducible tuning of the geometry of an array of truncated spherical metal nanovoids or the separation of metal nanoparticles, therefore providing a reproducible way of continuously tuning surface plasmon modes within same set of nanostructures. Such structures make possible the fabrication of low cost elasto-optic films and tunable metamaterials and substrates for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, with important implications in nano-optics and biosensors