AVS 65th International Symposium & Exhibition
    Electronic Materials and Photonics Division Thursday Sessions
       Session EM+MI+MN+NS-ThM

Paper EM+MI+MN+NS-ThM12
Light Scattering Properties of Silver Nanoprisms in Different Environments

Thursday, October 25, 2018, 11:40 am, Room 101A

Session: Nanostructures for Electronic and Photonic Devices
Presenter: Yuri Strzhemechny, Texas Christian University
Authors: Y.M. Strzhemechny, Texas Christian University
S. Requena, Harris Night Vision
H. Doan, Texas Christian University
S. Raut, University of North Texas Health Science Center
Z. Gryczynski, Texas Christian University
I. Gryczynski, University of North Texas Health Science Center
Correspondent: Click to Email
Embedding nanostructures into different environments, such as polymer matrices, organic and biological solutions oftentimes produces unique optoelectronic properties of the resulting compound system that are distinct from those of the host and nano-filler. Such strong modifications can be caused by the interface phenomena, the change in the spatial distribution and orientation of the nanostructures or a combination thereof. In this work, we report on optical properties of silver triangular prism nanoparticles embedded in water, lipid solutions, and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) polymer thin films. For our studies, using a common chemical reduction routine, we synthesized, batches of silver nanoparticles with different size distributions and distinct size-dependent dipole resonance spectra. Silver nanoprisms suspended in water yielded a noticeable wavelength-dependent depolarization of scattered light associated with different surface plasmon modes. Consequently, the same nanostructures were placed into lipid environments to estimate the rejection of a polarized background scattering during depolarization measurements. After that, the composite thin films were fabricated via incorporation of silver nanoparticles into PVA. We studied linear dichroism in those Ag/PVA films, as-prepared and subjected to controllable stretching. Re-orientation of the nanoprisms upon stretching leads to a significant increase of the linear dichroism for the plasmonic modes associated with the in-plane dipole oscillations and a decrease of the linear dichroism corresponding to the out-of-plane plasmonic modes. These observations are in good agreement with the assumption that stretching of the nanocomposite films leads to an anisotropic realignment of the nanoprisms.