Chemically tailored dielectric-to-metal transition for the design of metamaterials from nanoimprinted colloidal nanocrystals

Nano Lett. 2013 Feb 13;13(2):350-7. doi: 10.1021/nl303161d. Epub 2012 Dec 31.

Abstract

We demonstrate optical metamaterial design using colloidal gold nanocrystal building blocks. In the solid state, chemically exchanging the nanocrystals' surface-capping molecules provides a tailorable dielectric-to-metal transition exhibiting a 10(10) range in DC conductivity and dielectric permittivity ranging from everywhere positive to everywhere negative throughout the visible-to-near-IR. Direct, wide-area nanoimprinting of subwavelength superstructures at room temperature, on plastic and glass substrates, affords plasmonic resonances ranging from 660 to 1070 nm, in agreement with numerical simulations.