Plasmonic nano-printing: large-area nanoscale energy deposition for efficient surface texturing

The lossy nature of plasmonic wave due to absorption is shown to become an advantage for scaling-up a large area surface nanotexturing of transparent dielectrics and semiconductors by a self-organized sub-wavelength energy deposition leading to an ablation pattern—ripples—using this plasmonic nano-printing. Irreversible nanoscale modifications are delivered by surface plasmon polariton (SPP) using: (i) fast scan and (ii) cylindrical focusing of femtosecond laser pulses for a high patterning throughput. The mechanism of ripple formation on ZnS dielectric is experimentally proven to occur via surface wave at the substrate–plasma interface. The line focusing increase the ordering quality of ripples and facilitates fabrication over wafer-sized areas within a practical time span. Nanoprinting using SPP is expected to open new applications in photo-catalysis, tribology, and solar light harvesting via localized energy deposition rather scattering used in photonic and sensing applications based on re-scattering of SPP modes into far-field modes.