Laser-induced single point nanowelding of silver nanowires Shuowei Dai, Qiang Li, Guoping Liu, Hangbo Yang, Yuanqing Yang, Ding Zhao, Wei Wang, and Min Qiu Citation: Applied Physics Letters 108, 121103 (2016); doi: 10.1063/1.4944699 View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4944699 View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl/108/12?ver=pdfcov Published by the AIP Publishing Articles you may be interested in High performance plasmonic random laser based on nanogaps in bimetallic porous nanowires Appl. Phys. Lett. 103, 023504 (2013); 10.1063/1.4813558 Coupling of a single quantum emitter to end-to-end aligned silver nanowires Appl. Phys. Lett. 102, 103106 (2013); 10.1063/1.4795015 Highly localized heat generation by femtosecond laser induced plasmon excitation in Ag nanowires Appl. Phys. Lett. 102, 073107 (2013); 10.1063/1.4790189 Femtosecond laser welded nanostructures and plasmonic devices J. Laser Appl. 24, 042001 (2012); 10.2351/1.3695174 Laser-induced nanowelding of gold nanoparticles Appl. Phys. Lett. 86, 033112 (2005); 10.1063/1.1856139 Reuse of AIP Publishing content is subject to the terms at: https://publishing.aip.org/authors/rights-and-permissions. Download to IP: 183.157.160.49 On: Wed, 23 Mar 2016 01:23:57 APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 108, 121103 (2016) Laser-induced single point nanowelding of silver nanowires Shuowei Dai,a) Qiang Li,a),b) Guoping Liu, Hangbo Yang, Yuanqing Yang, Ding Zhao, Wei Wang, and Min Qiuc) State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, College of Optical Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China (Received 25 August 2015; accepted 10 March 2016; published online 22 March 2016) Nanowelding of nanomaterials opens up an emerging set of applications in transparent conductors, thin-film solar cells, nanocatalysis, cancer therapy, and nanoscale patterning. Single point nanowelding (SPNW) is highly demanded for building complex nanostructures. In this letter, the precise control of SPNW of silver nanowires is explored in depth, where the nanowelding is laser-induced through the plasmonic resonance enhanced photothermal effect. It is shown that the illumination position is a critical factor for the nanowelding process. As an example of performance enhancement, output at wire end can be increased by 65% after welding for a plasmonic nanocoupler. Thus, single point nanowelding technique shows great potentials for high-performance electronic and photonic devices based on nanowires, such as nanoelectronic circuits and plasmonic nanodevices. C 2016 AIP Publishing LLC. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4944699] V The welding of nanomaterials has been investigated intensively because of its potential applications in transparent conductors,1–7 thin-film solar cells,8 touch-panels,9–11 wearable electronics,12 and cancer therapy.13 So far, different approaches have been pursued to weld the junctions, such as thermal annealing,14,15 light-induced (including nonchromatic lamp16 or laser17–25) interaction, mechanical pressing,26 and cold welding.27–30 These methods are mainly intended for large-scale nanowire meshes. The metal nanowires are also one of the essential building blocks for nanophotonics and nanoelectronics.31,32 They can be constructed as integrated plasmonic circuits in nanophotonics.31 They also function as electrical connections in nanoelectronics.32 The nanowire–nanowire joining to realize single point nanowelding (SPNW) is thereby important and needs to be examined. Whether the methods used for large-scale nanowire meshes can be directly extended to SPNW needs to be studied. This is because extremely large beam size is usually adopted in these methods. While for SPNW, the illumination position can be a crucial factor in welding. Lu et al. proposed a cold welding method to connect ultrathin gold nanowires together.33 The electrical Joule heat could also be conducted to weld nanowires by applying voltage/current.34,35 The Joule heating is often detrimental to the underlying substructures. Moreover, the as-mentioned methods require extra electrodes to contact nanowires directly. Welding through laser-induced photothermal interaction appears to be a competitive alternative in terms of non-contact processing and minimum thermal damage to the substrate. To be specific, it relies only on the localized heat generated by the plasmonic resonance at the surface of metallic nanowires. In this work, the light-induced SPNW based on plasmonic enhanced photothermal effect is explored in depth. To gain a better understanding of photothermal effect on the nanowirebased structures, we first investigate laser illuminating on an individual nanowire. A heat transfer model is adopted to quantitatively characterize the thermal maps in nanowires. The SPNW is then applied to form functional nanostructures such as nanocouplers and nanojunctions. Finally, the optical output of nanocoupler is tested to demonstrate that the plasmon coupling efficiency could be improved after nanowelding. In order to make the described nanowires, we used the method reported in Ref. 36. The nanowires are synthesized in a chemical mixture of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and ethylene glycol (EG), and have a diameter around 300 nm. These thick silver nanowires show low propagation loss because only a small portion of field is confined inside the silver nanowires, and are thus widely used as plasmonic waveguides.31,37 This widely used method for Ag nanowire synthesis results in a nanoscale coating of insulating PVP. The Ag nanowires are first dropcast on the glass substrate. For a typical experiment, the diameters of Ag nanowires range from 270 nm to 370 nm, with lengths between 15 lm and 35 lm. Next, the nanowelding of silver nanowires is studied. A schematic of the experimental setup is illustrated in Fig. 1. A continuous-wave laser operating at 532-nm wavelength is adopted as a light source. The laser beam passes through a a) S. W. Dai and Q. Li contributed equally to this work. [email protected]. c) [email protected]. b) 0003-6951/2016/108(12)/121103/5/$30.00 FIG. 1. Schematic of the experimental setup. 108, 121103-1 C 2016 AIP Publishing LLC V Reuse of AIP Publishing content is subject to the terms at: https://publishing.aip.org/authors/rights-and-permissions. Download to IP: 183.157.160.49 On: Wed, 23 Mar 2016 01:23:57 121103-2 Dai et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 108, 121103 (2016) FIG. 2. Photothermal morphology change of an individual nanowire. (a) Schematics of the illumination geometry on a glass substrate. (b) and (d) are optical images after middle illumination and side illumination, respectively. Scale bar is 10 lm. (c) and (e) are SEM images of the middle region after middle illumination and the whole nanowire after side illumination, respectively. Scale bar is 200 nm. The green and red arrows denote the beam center position and the shrinkage direction, respectively. beam attenuator to control the incident power (around 200 mW) and then a mechanical beam shutter to control the processing time. A quarter wave-plate transforms the linear polarized light into circular-polarized one. After that the light propagates directly into the optical microscope and is then focused with a waist radius of about 430 nm using a 100 objective. A CCD camera is mounted on the microscope to monitor the sample. The shutter time of the laser processing is set to be 1 s considering the easy-controllability of our mechanical shutter, while the actual welding process happens on microsecond scale. The exact, desired welding location is achieved by an electrically controlled stage where the Ag nanowires are placed. Throughout this study, circular-polarized light is used. During the nanowelding, the nanoscale PVP coating is easily removed because of the large temperature increase. Figure 2 shows the photothermal morphology changes for different incident positions, which could be divided into two categories: middle illumination and side illumination. The latter refers to the case where the beam center is close to the endface of the nanowire, as Fig. 2(a) depicts. By setting the incident power as 150 mW, the Ag nanowire seems to be unchangeable after middle illumination (Fig. 2(b)). Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image shows that the focused light nearly cuts the nanowire at the beam center (Fig. 2(c)). In contrast, for the side illumination case, the left end of the Ag nanowire apparently shrinks along the nanowire (Fig. 2(d)), transforming into a ball-like end (Fig. 2(e)). To further explore the temperature distribution in the nanowelding process, the Finite Element Method (FEM) based commercial software Comsol Multiphysics is used here. This method was also adopted in Refs. 38–40. All physical and thermal data are taken from COMSOL libraries. The thermal analysis of the process is described by a transient heat transfer equation written as Csq T/ t ¼ k䉮2T þ Qs. T is the temperature of the nanostructure, which is time and space dependent. Cs, q, and k are specific heat capacity, density, and thermal conductivity, respectively. Qs is the heat source per unit volume. Csq T/ t is the time derivative of thermal energy per unit volume. k䉮2T is heat flux going outside the unit volume due to temperature gradient. Our previous work on nanoparticle system has shown that this equation is still valid from the temporal perspective.39 The heat source per unit volume Qs can be calculated as Qs ¼ 12 e0 xImeðxÞjEj2 , where e0 and e(x) are vacuum permittivity and gold permittivity, respectively, x is the angular frequency of the light, and E is the electric field. By obtaining the electric field also from the commercial software Comsol Multiphysics, the heat source is obtained, and correspondingly, the temperature distribution can be obtained by solving the heat transfer equation. Figure 3(a) exhibits the corresponding temperature distribution for middle and side illumination shown in Figs. 2(b) and 2(d). The melting point of bulk silver is 1235 K. However, the melting point of Ag e e FIG. 3. (a) Temperature distribution as a function of distance along the nanowire. The dashed green lines represent the melting point of Ag nanowire. The inset shows the illumination positions. (b) SEM image of the enlarged nanorod-shaped terminal. The incident power is 150 mW. Scale bar is 1 lm. The green arrow denotes the position of the beam center. e e Reuse of AIP Publishing content is subject to the terms at: https://publishing.aip.org/authors/rights-and-permissions. Download to IP: 183.157.160.49 On: Wed, 23 Mar 2016 01:23:57 121103-3 Dai et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 108, 121103 (2016) FIG. 4. Selective nanowelding of a nanocoupler. Optical images of nanowire unit A and unit B (a) before and (b) after micromanipulation. Scale bar is 2 lm. SEM images after laser illumination when (c) aiming at contact at 140 mW power and (d) deviating from contact at 120 mW power. Scale bar is 200 nm. The insets sketch the positions of light spot. The radius of the green circle is size of one beam waist. (e) and (f) are corresponding temperature profiles. The insets illustrate the end of the nanowires, where the green arrows stand for the heat flux. nanowire has been found to be lower than that of the corresponding bulk materials. Previous study by Alvaro Mayoral has demonstrated that the melting point of the Ag nanowire is around 873 K,41 which is denoted as a green dashed line in Fig. 3(a). We then review the peak values of both the curves in Fig. 3(a). For the middle illumination case, the temperature profile is highly symmetric with a peak value of 862 K (red curve in Fig. 3(a)), a little bit lower than the melting point. For the side illumination case, the beam center is located 2 lm away from the nanowire end with the peak value rising to 1200 K (blue curve in Fig. 3(a)). Thermal conductance determines the heat transfer efficiency to the surrounding. Since the thermal conductance of Ag nanowire is much higher than that in the air as well as in the glass substrate, a large amount of heat accumulates in the region between the beam center and the terminal, thus elevating the temperature significantly. It is worth noting that the shrinkage length, as Fig. 3(b) depicts, could be distinguished through the residual traces, which have also been observed by Polyakov et al.42 From the simulated temperature curve, we can see that the length of the silver nanowire where the temperature is above the melting point is around 4.4 lm, which is in good accordance with the measurement in SEM image. The conceptual interpretation can be analyzed as follows. First, the position of the beam center decides the location of peak temperature. Once nanowire’s temperature is higher than the melting point, it transforms into liquid phase entirely. Meanwhile, for some parts of the nanowire, the temperature is slightly below the melting point. The large temperature gradient (108 K/m) determines the shrinkage direction of the nanowire. Those melted amounts of silver in liquid phase tend to shrink into a ball-like structure in order to obtain a minimum surface energy state,43 while the silver in solid phase remains unchanged, acting as a crystal nucleus for the melted silver to resolidify due to the strong surface tension. The actual welding process happens on the microsecond time scale. The discussion of photothermal effect on individual nanowires serves as an excellent guideline for nanowelding. Figure 4(a) illustrates two nanowire units before micromanipulation. The diameters are both 280 nm. The lengths for unit A and unit B are 11.3 lm and 10.2 lm, respectively. A fiber probe using a flame-heated drawing technique44 is applied to push unit A towards unit B so as to form a Ybranch nanocoupler (Fig. 4(b)). In order to weld two nanowire units together, one may naturally set the beam center at the contact point. However, our experimental result in Fig. 4(c) implies that this kind of illumination may not lead to the welding due to the formation of a ball-like end as discussed before. The inset of Fig. 4(e) clearly denotes that the heat flux along the nanowire outweighs the heat flux directing upon another nanowire. To avoid the “negative” heat effect at the end of nanowire, we adjust the beam center to deviate from the contact point instead. In Fig. 4(d), the beam center is located approximately one waist size of a Gaussian beam away from the contact point. Owing to the light intensity nature of the Gaussian beam, the plasmonic heat is excited locally and most of the power absorption occurs within the Reuse of AIP Publishing content is subject to the terms at: https://publishing.aip.org/authors/rights-and-permissions. Download to IP: 183.157.160.49 On: Wed, 23 Mar 2016 01:23:57 121103-4 Dai et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 108, 121103 (2016) FIG. 5. Dark-field optical images of a silver nanocoupler excited by the 976 nm laser (a) before nanowelding and (b) after nanowelding. Scale bar is 2 lm. (c) Light-field optical image of a silver nanocoupler. The green arrow denotes the position of the beam center for nanowelding. Scale bar is 2 lm. (d) SEM image of the welded nanocoupler. Scale bar is 200 nm. radius of one beam waist. For unit B, this localized heat not only helps to form a relative-high heat flux between two nanowires (see inset in Fig. 4(f)) but also keeps the unit B thermally stable. The importance of controlling the beam center position is to ensure the temperature at the joint is higher enough to initiate surface melting but lower than the melting temperature to avoid liquidation. Apart from the welded nanocoupler built by basic nanowire units, the SPNW could also be realized in the case of cross junctions (see supplementary material Fig. S1.45). To show the potential to improve the performance of photonic devices after nanowelding, we characterize the optical output of a typical nanocoupler, as Fig. 5 illustrates. A tapered optical fiber is employed to conduct the 976 nm laser light with the quasi-circular-polarization guided modes.31 Through directional coupling, the light is coupled into the nanowire to excite the plasmonic transmission in the nanocoupler. Figure 5(a) reveals that the excitation light is directed into nanowire with a large scattered light spot. Compared to the optical output at wire end 2, the output at wire end 1 is weaker due to the weak coupling and propagation loss. For the output at wire end 1, we calculate its intensity change before and after nanowelding. The intensity is increased by 65% as Fig. 5(b) exhibits, indicating an enhanced coupling efficiency between the two nanowires. The wire end 3 in Fig. 5(c) forms a contact point with another wire, and the corresponding welded region is shown in Fig. 5(d). Note that the roughness of Ag nanowire surface is due to the sputtered Au ions aiming to increase sample conductivity under SEM. Meanwhile, the optical output at wire end 3 is dimmer after nanowelding, which indicates more photons is coupled into another nanowire instead of being scattered into the free space, thus improving the coupling efficiency. Further investigations of optical properties of welded nanowires will be included in our future works. In conclusion, we have proposed a non-contact laserinduced nanowelding method to join the nanowire-based structures. The power intensity, illumination position, and the topology of the nanowire could be determined deliberately. This high degree of control over light–matter interactions is derived from the fact that the plasmonic heat generated by Ag nanowires is spatial localized, thus laying importance on the illumination position. To realize nanowelding effectively, the temperature distribution for the basic unit is instructive as proved by thermodynamic simulations. As such, a large variety of complex on-chip nanodevices could be fabricated by means of laser illumination, which may be extended to the welding of other basic components, nanoplate, and nanorod. Our work could be the basis of the design in next-generation interconnection for extremely dense logic circuits, waveguides, and addressable routers. 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