Investigating the Optical Properties of a Laser Induced 3D Self-Assembled Carbon-Metal Hybrid Structure

Muhammad Abdullah Butt; Antonino Calà Lesina; Martin Neugebauer; Thomas Bauer; Lora Ramunno; Alessandro Vaccari; Pierre Berini; Yuriy Petrov; Denis Danilov; Alina Manshina; Peter Banzer; Gerd Leuchs

doi:10.1002/smll.201900512

Investigating the Optical Properties of a Laser Induced 3D Self-Assembled Carbon-Metal Hybrid Structure

Small. 2019 May;15(18):e1900512. doi: 10.1002/smll.201900512. Epub 2019 Apr 8.

Authors

Muhammad Abdullah Butt^{1

2

3}, Antonino Calà Lesina^{4

5

6

7}, Martin Neugebauer^{1

2}, Thomas Bauer^{6

8}, Lora Ramunno^{4

5}, Alessandro Vaccari⁹, Pierre Berini^{4

5

6

7}, Yuriy Petrov¹⁰, Denis Danilov¹¹, Alina Manshina¹², Peter Banzer^{1

2

6}, Gerd Leuchs^{1

2

4

6}

Affiliations

¹ Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, 91058, Erlangen, Germany.
² Institute of Optics, Information and Photonics, University Erlangen-Nuremberg, 91058, Erlangen, Germany.
³ School of Advanced Optical Technologies, University Erlangen-Nuremberg, 91052, Erlangen, Germany.
⁴ Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5, Canada.
⁵ Centre for Research in Photonics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5, Canada.
⁶ Max Planck-University of Ottawa Centre for Extreme and Quantum Photonics, Ottawa, K1N 6N5, Canada.
⁷ School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5, Canada.
⁸ Department of Quantum Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, 2628 CJ, Delft, Netherlands.
⁹ Centre for Materials and Microsystems, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, 38123, Trento, Italy.
¹⁰ Faculty of physics, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, 198504, Russia.
¹¹ Interdisciplinary Resource center for Nanotechnology, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, 198504, Russia.
¹² Institute of Chemistry, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, 198504, Russia.

PMID: 30957965
DOI: 10.1002/smll.201900512

Abstract

Carbon-based and carbon-metal hybrid materials hold great potential for applications in optics and electronics. Here, a novel material made of carbon and gold-silver nanoparticles is discussed, fabricated using a laser-induced self-assembly process. This self-assembled metamaterial manifests itself in the form of cuboids with lateral dimensions on the order of several micrometers and a height of tens to hundreds of nanometers. The carbon atoms are arranged following an orthorhombic unit cell, with alloy nanoparticles intercalated in the crystalline carbon matrix. The optical properties of this metamaterial are analyzed experimentally using a microscopic Müller matrix measurement approach and reveal a high linear birefringence across the visible spectral range. Theoretical modeling based on local-field theory applied to the carbon matrix links the birefringence to the orthorhombic unit cell, while finite-difference time-domain simulations of the metamaterial relates the observed optical response to the distribution of the alloy nanoparticles and the optical density of the carbon matrix.

Keywords: computational modeling; laser-induced deposition; metal alloy nanoparticles; microscopic Müller matrix measurement technique; orthorhombic carbon.

Abstract

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