Control of work functions of nanophotonic components.

Work function is an essential material's property playing important roles in electronics, photovoltaics, and more recently, in nanophotonics. We have studied effects of organic, and inorganic dielectric materials on work functions of Au films in single layered, and multilayered structures. We found that measured work function of metallic surfaces can be affected by dielectric materials situated 10-100 nm away from the metallic surface.

Probing Charge Transport Kinetics in a Plasmonic Environment with Cyclic Voltammetry.

Possible modifications in electrochemical reaction kinetics are explored in a nanostructured plasmonic environment with and without additional light illumination using a cyclic voltammetry (CV) method. In nanostructured gold, the effect of light on anodic and cathodic currents is much pronounced than that in a flat system. The electron-transfer rate shows a 3-fold increase under photoexcitation.

Nanoporous gold nanoleaf as tunable metamaterial.

We have studied optical properties of single-layer and multi-fold nanoporous gold leaf (NPGL) metamaterials and observed highly unusual transmission spectra composed of two well-resolved peaks. We explain this phenomenon in terms of a surface plasmon absorption band positioned on the top of a broader transmission band, the latter being characteristic of both homogeneous "solid" and inhomogeneous "diluted" Au films. The transmission spectra of NPGL metamaterials were shown to be controlled by external dielectric environments, e.