Plasmonic Black Metasurface by Transfer Printing

Abstract In various applications simultaneous large optical absorption and large thermal and electrical conductivity are desired. As bulk materials cannot fulfill that need, metamaterials have been developed that often require complicated nanotechnology. The work presents the facile fabrication of black metasurfaces consisting of silver only. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are transfer printed onto a silver film from a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) stamp. Numerical simulations confirm that gap plasmon modes between the particles and the film are responsible for increased absorption and also show that a nanoscale variation of the AgNP size increases the spectral width and magnitude of the absorption. The presented transfer printing enables such control of the AgNP size by introducing a relief at the PDMS stamp surface. In a case study a grating relief of a period of 277 nm is used. The resulting highly conductive metasurface shows large absorption of up to 97% for transversal magnetic polarization and over 70% for unpolarized light from the near‐ultraviolet to near‐infrared range for incident angles below 45°.