Strong Local Chiroptical Response in Racemic Patchy Silver Films: Enabling a Large-Area Chiroptical Device

Abstract

Ag glancing angle depositions on polycrystalline colloid monolayers can produce a variety of chiral or achiral Ag nanostructures in different colloid monolayer domains, whose geometric shapes strongly depend on the monolayer orientations. The morphological and chiroptical properties of these Ag nanostructures in different colloid monolayer domains are investigated both experimentally and theoretically, and their relationship has been revealed. Extremely strong local circular dichroism is observed for the domains with obviously chiral morphologies. Under the guidance of this individual domain study, large-area chiral metamaterials can be fabricated on the monocrystalline monolayers with strong, uniform, and tunable chiroptical response, which can be potentially developed into optical devices.