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arXiv · 2505.06036

Polymer-Shell Coating of Mie-Resonant Silicon Nanospheres for Controlled Fabrication of Self-Assembled Monolayer

Oanh Vu·Jialu Song·Hiroshi Sugimoto·Minoru Fujii
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Abstract

A polymer shell offers a unique opportunity to tailor structural and optical properties of optically functional nanoparticles and their ensembles. Here, we develop a process to coat Mie-resonant silicon nanospheres (Si NSs) with a thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) hydrogel shell. We show formation of a PNIPAM shell of controlled thickness from the change of the hydrodynamic diameter and study the effect of thermoresponsive shrinkage and expansion of the shell on the Mie resonance of a Si NS. We then demonstrate that Si NSs with PNIPAM shells enable fabrication of cluster-free, self-assembled monolayers of Si NSs, in which distances between NSs are controlled by the PNIPAM shell thickness.

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Oanh Vu, Jialu Song, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Minoru Fujii. 2025-05-09. Polymer-Shell Coating of Mie-Resonant Silicon Nanospheres for Controlled Fabrication of Self-Assembled Monolayer. https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.06036

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