Accuracy and Mechanistic Details of Optical Printing of Single Au and Ag Nanoparticles.

Optical printing is a powerful all-optical method that allows the incorporation of colloidal nanoparticles (NPs) onto substrates with nanometric precision. Here, we present a systematic study of the accuracy of optical printing of Au and Ag NPs, using different laser powers and wavelengths. When using light of wavelength tuned to the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of the NPs, the accuracy improves as the laser power is reduced, whereas for wavelengths off the LSPR, the accuracy is independent of the laser power.

Connecting Metallic Nanoparticles by Optical Printing.

Optical printing is a simple and flexible method to bring colloidal nanoparticles from suspension to specific locations of a substrate. However, its application has been limited to the fabrication of arrays of isolated nanoparticles because, until now, it was never possible to bring nanoparticles closer together than approximately 300 nm. Here, we propose this limitation is due to thermophoretic repulsive forces generated by plasmonic heating of the NPs.