Stretchable metal-elastomer nanovoids for tunable plasmons

A range of flexible metal-elastomer nanostructures are fabricated using a self-assembly and casting technique. Such nanostructures support plasmons, which have energies and field distributions that are strongly dependent on the structure geometry or position within an array. In particular, truncated spherical metal cavities embedded within a flexible three-dimensional elastomer film can be elastically deformed without tearing, modifying their shape and mechanically tuning their resonant plasmon modes. Such structures make possible the fabrication of low cost elasto-optic films and tunable substrates for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy.