Optical Properties of Colloidal Silver Nanowires

Ruben F. Hamans, Matteo Parente, Aitzol Garcia-Etxarri, Andrea Baldi*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Silver nanowires are used in many applications, ranging from transparent conductive layers to Raman substrates and sensors. Their performance often relies on their unique optical properties that emerge from localized surface plasmon resonances in the ultraviolet. To tailor the nanowire geometry for a specific application, a correct understanding of the relationship between the wire's structure and its optical properties is therefore necessary. However, while the colloidal synthesis of silver nanowires typically leads to structures with pentagonally twinned geometries, their optical properties are often modeled assuming a cylindrical cross-section. Here we highlight the strengths and limitations of such an approximation by numerically calculating the optical and electrical response of pentagonally twinned silver nanowires and nanowire networks. We find that our accurate modeling is crucial to deduce structural information from experimentally measured extinction spectra of colloidally synthesized nanowire suspensions and to predict the performance of nanowire-based near-field sensors. On the contrary, the cylindrical approximation is fully capable of capturing the optical and electrical performance of nanowire networks used as transparent electrodes. Our results can help assess the quality of nanowire syntheses and guide in the design of optimized silver nanowire-based devices.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8703-8709
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Physical Chemistry C
Volume126
Issue number20
Early online date17 May 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 26 May 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge Hugh Manning for assistance in setting up the software for the sheet resistance simulations. A.G.-E. acknowledges funding from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (PID2019-109905GA-C2), from Eusko Jaurlaritza (KK-2021/00082) and Programa Redguipuzcoana de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Innovacion 2021, grant no. 2021-CIEN-000070-01, Gipuzkoa Next, and from the Basque Government’s IKUR initiative on Quantum technologies (Department of Education). R.F.H. and A.B. acknowledge support from The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research through the NWO Vidi Award 680-47-550.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.

Funding

The authors acknowledge Hugh Manning for assistance in setting up the software for the sheet resistance simulations. A.G.-E. acknowledges funding from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (PID2019-109905GA-C2), from Eusko Jaurlaritza (KK-2021/00082) and Programa Redguipuzcoana de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Innovacion 2021, grant no. 2021-CIEN-000070-01, Gipuzkoa Next, and from the Basque Government’s IKUR initiative on Quantum technologies (Department of Education). R.F.H. and A.B. acknowledge support from The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research through the NWO Vidi Award 680-47-550.

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