NanoPen: Dynamic, Low-Power, and Light-Actuated Patterning of Nanoparticles

Arash Jamshidi, Steven L. Neale, Kyoungsik Yu, Peter J. Pauzauskie, Peter James Schuck, Justin K. Valley, Hsan-Yin Hsu, Aaron T. Ohta and Ming C. Wu

We introduce NanoPen, a novel technique for low optical power intensity, flexible, real-time reconfigurable, and large-scale light-actuated patterning of single or multiple nanoparticles, such as metallic spherical nanocrystals, and one-dimensional nanostructures, such as carbon nanotubes. NanoPen is capable of dynamically patterning nanoparticles over an area of thousands of square micrometers with light intensities <10 style="vertical-align: 0.4em; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 0; ">2 (using a commercial projector) within seconds. Various arbitrary nanoparticle patterns and arrays (including a 10 × 10 array covering a 0.025 mm² area) are demonstrated using this capability. One application of NanoPen is presented through the creation of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy hot-spots by patterning gold nanoparticles of 90 nm diameter with enhancement factors exceeding 10⁷ and picomolar concentration sensitivities.

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