Aligned silver nanoparticles on rippled silicon templates exhibiting anisotropic plasmon absorption

Aligned silver nanoparticles, grown by combining two simple bottom-up techniques, are reported. Physical vapor-deposited silver adatoms are shown to form nanoparticles preferentially in the valleys of rippled silicon templates prepared by low-energy ion bombardment. A 35-nm ripple periodicity produced highly aligned structures with a 0.21 eV polarization-dependent shift in the plasmon resonance peak. The speed and simplicity of the method is viable for cost-effective, large-scale production of mesoscale aligned nanostructures with adjustable periodicity.