Conducting Polymer Electrochemical Switching as an Easy Means for Designing Active Plasmonic Devices

• Published in: Journal of the American Chemical Society Vol. 127; no. 46; pp. 16022 - 16023
• Main Authors: Leroux, Yann R, Lacroix, Jean Christophe, Chane-Ching, Kathleen I, Fave, Claire, Félidj, Nordin, Lévi, Georges, Aubard, Jean, Krenn, Joachim R, Hohenau, Andreas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 23-11-2005
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Chemical Physics; Collective excitations (including excitons, polarons, plasmons and other charge-density excitations); Collective excitations (including plasmons and other charge-density excitations); Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties; Electronic structure and electrical properties of surfaces, interfaces, thin films and low-dimensional structures; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Molecular electronics, nanoelectronics; Physics; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Surface and interface electron states; Conducting polymers; Molecular electronics; Indium tin oxide electrode; Electronic switching; Electron beam lithography; Aromatic polymer; Electron transfer; Optical extinction; Experimental study; Metal particle; Surface plasmons; Polyanilines
• ISSN: 0002-7863; 1520-5126
• DOI: 10.1021/ja054915v

Due to the continuously increasing demand for ultimate miniaturization of electronic and photonic systems, molecular electronics and plasmonic devices are currently booming as alternative technologies because of their very promising potential in writing, reading, storing, and processing information at the nanoscale. Conducting polymers or oligomers have been proposed and used as basic building blocks in molecular and plastic electronics since the end of the 80s. Plasmonics is, on the other hand, an emerging branch of photonics which uses nanostructured materials that support surface plasmons. Among plasmonic devices, active plasmonic devices are still lacking. In this work, we report on new active molecular plasmonic devices in which the electrochemical switching of a nanometric film of conductive polymer between its reduced and oxidized state is used in order to control, switch, and modulate localized surface plasmon (LSP) resonance of gold nanoparticle arrays.