Speaker
Description
While gold-based plasmonic nanostructures show great promise for plasmonic applications, their wider use is limited by high manufacturing costs and a limited plasmon energy range constrained by interband transitions and subsequent damping of localised surface plasmon resonances. These limitations are a key motivation for exploring alternative, non-noble metal options. Lead and tin have been identified as particularly promising novel plasmonic materials due to their theoretically predicted comparable performance and wider spectral range. In this study, we present a detailed analysis of the plasmonic properties of lead and tin nanoparticles, conducted using STEM-EELS.
In order to investigate these non-noble metals, different chemical synthesis approaches have been applied for each of the two materials. Tin nanoparticles were synthesised by reduction of tin chloride by sodium borohydride. Lead nanoparticles were prepared by thermal decomposition of a metal-organic salt at high temperatures. These wet syntheses led to the formation of spherical nanoparticles with a wide size distribution, ideal for the evaluation of the tunability and plasmonic performance over a wide range of nanoparticle diameters.
Both of the studied non-noble metals exhibit a wide spectral range of LSPRs, extending it up to the UV-C spectral region, while maintaining its plasmonic performance over the entire spectral range. As a result, lead and tin are identified as promising candidates for UV plasmonic applications.