Engineering of Low-Loss Metal for Nanoplasmonic and Metamaterials Applications

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how alloying gold with cadmium can enhance optical properties and expand the spectral range of metallic reflectance, offering new avenues for optimizing low-loss metals in nanoplasmonic and metamaterials.

Contribution

It introduces a novel alloying approach with first-principles theory validation to improve low-loss metals for nanoplasmonic applications.

Findings

Alloying gold with cadmium expands reflectance to shorter wavelengths.

Optical properties are significantly improved in certain spectral ranges.

Theoretical predictions align with experimental results.

Abstract

We have shown that alloying a noble metal (gold) with another metal (cadmium), which can contribute two electrons per atom to a free electron gas, can significantly improve the metals optical properties in certain wavelength ranges and make them worse in the other parts of the spectrum. In particular, in the gold-cadmium alloy we have demonstrated a significant expansion of the spectral range of metallic reflectance to shorter wavelengths. The experimental results and the predictions of the first principles theory demonstrate an opportunity for the improvement and optimization of low-loss metals for nanoplasmonic and metamaterials applications.