Controlling the nano- and micropatterning of metal structures is an important requirement for various technological applications in photonics and biosensing. This work presents a method for controllably creating silver micropatterns by laser-induced photosculpting. Photosculpting is driven by plasmonic interactions between pulsed laser radiation and silver nanorods (AgNRs) in aqueous suspension; this process leads to optical binding forces transporting the AgNRs in the surroundings, while electronic thermalization results in photooxidation, melting, and ripening of the AgNRs into well-defined 3D structures. This work call these structures Airy castles due to their structural similarity with a diffraction-limited Airy disk. The photosculpted Airy castles contain emissive Ag nanoclusters, allowing for the visualization and examination of the aggregation process using luminescence microscopy. This work comprehensively examines the factors that define the photosculpting process, namely, the concentration and shape of the AgNRs, as well as the energy, power, and repetition rate of the laser. Finally, this work investigates the potential applications by measuring the metal-enhanced luminescence of a europium-based luminophore using Airy castles., MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Grant Number: CTQ2017-85658-R
MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. Grant Number: PID2020-114256RB-I00
European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie. Grant Number: 101007934
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. Grant Numbers: UIDB/00100/2020, 2022.04076.PTDC

This work was supported by grant CTQ2017-85658-R funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ FEDER “Una manera de hacer Europa”, grant PID2020-114256RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and the diaRNAgnosis project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101007934. P.M.R.P. acknowledges funding from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., through projects UIDB/00100/2020 and 2022.04076.PTDC., Controlling the nano- and micropatterning of metal structures is an important requirement for various technological applications in photonics and biosensing. We present a method for controllably creating silver micropatterns by laser-induced photo-sculpting. Photo-sculpting is driven by plasmonic interactions between pulsed laser radiation and silver nanorods (AgNRs) in aqueous suspension; this process leads to optical binding forces transporting the AgNRs in the surroundings, while electronic thermalization results in photooxidation, melting, and ripening of the AgNRs into well-defined 3D structures. We called these structures Airy castles due to their structural similarity with a diffraction-limited Airy disk. The photo-sculpted Airy castles contain emissive Ag nanoclusters, allowing for the visualization and examination of the aggregation process using luminescence microscopy. We comprehensively examine the factors that define the photo-sculpting process, namely, the concentration and shape of the AgNRs, as well as the energy, power and repetition rate of the laser. Finally, we investigate the potential applications by measuring the metal-enhanced luminescence of a europium-based luminophore using Airy castles., Grant CTQ2017-85658-R funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ FEDER “Una manera de hacer Europa”, Grant PID2020-114256RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, diaRNAgnosis project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101007934, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., through projects UIDB/00100/2020 and 2022.04076.PTDC