TY - JOUR
T1 - Ultraviolet–Visible Chiroptical Activity of Aluminum Nanostructures
AU - Liu, Junjun
AU - Yang, Lin
AU - Zhang, Han
AU - Wang, Jianfang
AU - Huang, Zhifeng
N1 - Funding Information:
J. J. Liu, L. Yang, Dr. Z. F. Huang Department of Physics Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China E-mail: [email protected] H. Zhang, Prof. J. F. Wang Department of Physics The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, China Dr. Z. F. Huang Institute of Advanced Materials Partner State Key Laboratory of Environmental and Biological Analysis HKBU Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China Dr. Z. F. Huang HKBU Institute of Research and Continuing Education 9F, the Industrialization Complex of Shenzhen Virtual University Park No. 2 Yuexing 3rd Road, South Zone, Hi-Tech Industrial Park Nanshan District, Shenzhen, 518057 Guangdong Province, China The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.201701112.
Funding Information:
J.J.L. and L.Y. contributed equally to this work. The authors thank Henglei Jia (Physics, CUHK), Man Hau Yeung (Physics, CUHK), and Benson Leung (Physics, HKBU) for their technical support with TEM, Winnie Wu (IAM, HKBU) for her technical support with XRD and XPS, and financial support of NSFC/21473149, FRG2/15-16/055 (HKBU), FRG2/16-17/013 (HKBU), and HKBU8/CRF/11E (GLAD).
PY - 2017/10/18
Y1 - 2017/10/18
N2 - Ultraviolet (UV)-resonant metals (e.g., aluminum) typically have low melting point to cause a fabrication difficulty in helical sculpture to generate plasmons with chiroptical activity in the UV region. In this work, using glancing angle deposition (GLAD), two new methods are devised to generate crystalline chiral Al nanostructures that have stable chiroptical response in the UV–visible region originating from intrinsic helical structures. One approach involves fast substrate rotation during GLAD to fabricate Al nanoparticles (AlNPs) with hidden helicity; another is to deposit an achiral Al thin film on a host of plasmonic chiral NPs, such that the helical structures are duplicated from the chiral host to the achiral guest of Al nanocappings. The host@guest helicity duplication is a new GLAD methodology to generate chiroptically active plasmons, which can be generally adapted to diverse plasmonic metals for tailoring plasmonic chiroptical activity flexibly in the UV–visible region. More importantly, this work offers those two new methods to generate UV-active plasmonic chiral substrates, which can markedly enhance chiroptical activity of biomolecules. It would open a door to develop surface-enhanced chiroptical spectroscopies for sensitively monitoring stereobiochemical information, which is of prominent interest in understanding a wide range of homochirality-determined biological phenomena.
AB - Ultraviolet (UV)-resonant metals (e.g., aluminum) typically have low melting point to cause a fabrication difficulty in helical sculpture to generate plasmons with chiroptical activity in the UV region. In this work, using glancing angle deposition (GLAD), two new methods are devised to generate crystalline chiral Al nanostructures that have stable chiroptical response in the UV–visible region originating from intrinsic helical structures. One approach involves fast substrate rotation during GLAD to fabricate Al nanoparticles (AlNPs) with hidden helicity; another is to deposit an achiral Al thin film on a host of plasmonic chiral NPs, such that the helical structures are duplicated from the chiral host to the achiral guest of Al nanocappings. The host@guest helicity duplication is a new GLAD methodology to generate chiroptically active plasmons, which can be generally adapted to diverse plasmonic metals for tailoring plasmonic chiroptical activity flexibly in the UV–visible region. More importantly, this work offers those two new methods to generate UV-active plasmonic chiral substrates, which can markedly enhance chiroptical activity of biomolecules. It would open a door to develop surface-enhanced chiroptical spectroscopies for sensitively monitoring stereobiochemical information, which is of prominent interest in understanding a wide range of homochirality-determined biological phenomena.
KW - aluminum
KW - chiral nanostructures
KW - circular dichroism
KW - glancing angle deposition
KW - UV–visible chiroptical activity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85026726147&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/smll.201701112
DO - 10.1002/smll.201701112
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 28783232
AN - SCOPUS:85026726147
SN - 1613-6810
VL - 13
JO - Small
JF - Small
IS - 39
M1 - 1701112
ER -