Efficient Fabrication Process of Ordered Metal Nanodot Arrays for Infrared Plasmonic Sensor

In this paper, a simple process to fabricate ordered Au nanodot arrays up to 520 nm in diameter that respond to infrared light is developed, and the feasibility of its application to infrared plasmonic sensors is shown. The developed process utilizes thermal dewetting to agglomerate a coated gold film into nanodots. It was difficult to produce large nanodots that responded to infrared light owing to dot separation. In this paper, therefore, the mechanism of dot agglomeration by thermal dewetting is studied via an experiment and theoretical model, and conditions to form single nanodots are clarified. Furthermore, Au nanodot arrays of 100 nm to 520 nm in diameter were fabricated by this process, and their absorption spectra were analyzed. In addition, an analysis of the change in the peak wavelength against the refractive index indicates the possibility of further improvement of the sensitivity of the infrared plasmon sensors.