Overgrowth of Silver Nanodisks on a Substrate into Vertically Aligned Nanopillars for Chromatic Light Polarization

Vertically aligned and well-separated 1D silver nanopillars (AgNPLs) are prepared on a large-area quartz surface using a robust colloidal chemical technique. Silver nanodisk (AgND) monolayers were first deposited on quartz using the Langmuir-Blodgett technique, and the presence of the substrate induced asymmetric chemical overgrowth of the AgNDs into AgNPLs. The height and diameter of the prepared AgNPLs were controlled by changing the rate of the overgrowth reaction. Chloride ions were used during overgrowth to etch the silver atoms that formed sharp features on the sides of the AgNDs and to limit growth in the lateral direction. The grown AgNPLs displayed two surface plasmon resonance modes corresponding to the transverse and longitudinal electron oscillations. The intensity of the longitudinal mode increased by a factor of 9 while the intensity of the transverse mode decreased by a factor of 2.5 upon increasing the angle of incidence of the exciting light from 0° to 60°. This interesting property makes these AgNPL arrays on quartz useful as chromatic light polarizers.