Multicomponent metallic architectures exhibit a variety of tunable properties that are intimately dependent on structure. In atomic systems, it is difficult to separate the structure, composition, and placement of elemental components independently, especially across multiple length scales where novel properties often emerge. Nanoscale assembly provides a powerful means for designing those structural factors that dictate the collective material response including three-dimensional crystal habit, metal-semiconductor ‘doping’, and nanoparticle packing density. Here, we describe mixed silver and gold plasmonic nanoparticle architectures, assembled with DNA-programmable assembly, with unprecedented control over metallic structure, unveiling exquisitely tunable optical properties such as controllable color and asymmetric reflectivity. These properties are predicted and explained both by effective thin film models and explicit electrodynamic simulations. In particular, these data demonstrate that the manner and ratio with which multiple metallic components are arranged can greatly alter the observable bulk optical properties such that color, absorption, and reflectivity can be designed <i>a priori</i>. This work further demonstrates that the deliberate arrangement of metallic components on the atomic scale and nanoscale enables precisely tunable and strikingly different optical properties depending on the means of organization and length scale over which they are arranged.

Plasmonic metallurgy enabled by DNA

251st National Meeting (2016)

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