Fabrication of Plasmonic Thin Films, Their Characterization and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Currently, plasmonics is one of the hot topics in fundamental and material sciences because of its wide technological applications. The phenomena of plasmonics studies are associated with surface plasmons that coherently oscillate free-electron plasma localized at the nanostructured metal surface and propagate along the metal–dielectric interface. When the resonance conditions are met, the plasmon strongly couples light, providing tremendous near-field enhancement in a confined space of dimensions less than a diffraction limit. This phenomenon is known as localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) and is vastly exploited in light harvesting, plasmon-enhanced photocatalysis, molecular sensing, photo-thermal therapeutics, super-resolution imaging, surface-enhanced spectroscopies, etc.

LSPR conditions critically depend on the plasmonic material and its morphology, which allows one to selectively tune the plasmonic resonance frequency according to requirements of the experiment. There are many new alternative plasmonic materials that go beyond gold and silver, and provide advantages in fabrication, tunability, and performance of plasmonic devices. Such materials encompass aluminum, doped semiconductors, plasmonic 2D materials (graphene, boron nitride, MXenes, metal oxides, and non-metals), metamaterials, etc. We invite authors to publish novel and original experimental works on the fabrication of plasmonic nanostructured thin films and plasmonic nanoparticles for tailored surface modification and subsequent applications. The Special Issue coverage also includes new nonconventional plasmonic materials, hybrid magneto-plasmonic nanoparticles, and core-shell and alloy nanoparticles, as well as their application in the development of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), shell-isolated nanoparticle-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SHINERS), tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS), graphene-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (GERS), surface-enhanced fluorescence (SEF), and surface-enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy (SEIRAS) and others.

Dr. Lina Mikoliūnaitė
Dr. Martynas Talaikis
Guest Editors

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