Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and ‡Department of Chemistry, Rice University , Houston, Texas 77005, United States.
ACS Nano. 2016 Nov 22;10(11):9772-9775. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.6b07223. Epub 2016 Nov 8.
The use of earth-abundant materials is at the frontier of nanoplasmonics research, where their availability and low cost can enable practical mainstream applications and commercial viability. Aluminum is of specific interest in this regard, due to its ability to support plasmon resonances throughout the ultraviolet (UV), visible, and infrared regions of the spectrum. However, the lack of accurate dielectric data has critically limited the agreement between theoretical predictions and experimental measurements of the optical properties of Al nanostructures compared, for example, to the agreement enjoyed by the noble/coinage metals. As reported in this issue of ACS Nano, efforts by Cheng et al. to determine the dielectric function of pristine Al show that Al has substantially lower loss than was indicated by previously reported dielectric data for Al, including a 2-fold lower loss for the UV region compared to that in previous studies. These results provide data that are essential for accurate agreement between theory and experiment for Al plasmonic nanostructures, placing this earth-abundant metal on sound footing as a new and highly promising material for sustainable plasmonics by design.
在纳米等离子体学研究的前沿领域，使用丰富的地球材料是至关重要的，因为它们的可用性和低成本可以实现实际的主流应用和商业可行性。在这方面，铝特别引人注目，因为它能够在整个光谱的紫外线 (UV)、可见光和红外线区域支持等离子体共振。然而，缺乏准确的介电数据极大地限制了理论预测与铝纳米结构光学性质的实验测量之间的一致性，相比之下，与贵金属/贱金属所享有的一致性形成了鲜明对比。正如 Cheng 等人在本期 ACS Nano 中报道的那样，他们努力确定原始铝的介电函数的结果表明，铝的损耗比之前报道的铝介电数据所表明的要低得多，与之前的研究相比，铝在 UV 区域的损耗降低了两倍。这些结果为铝等离子体纳米结构理论与实验之间的精确一致性提供了必要的数据，使这种丰富的地球金属成为一种新的、极具前景的可持续设计等离子体材料。
