Selective control of reconfigurable chiral plasmonic metamolecules

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to selectively reconfigure DNA-assembled plasmonic metamolecules using pH changes, enabling programmable control over chiroptical effects and discrimination of chiral structures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach for active plasmonic systems with programmable, stimulus-responsive reconfiguration of multiple metamolecule species.

Findings

Demonstrated pH-responsive reconfiguration of plasmonic metamolecules

Achieved discrimination of chiral quasi-enantiomers

Enabled arbitrary tuning of chiroptical effects

Abstract

Selective configuration control of plasmonic nanostructures using either top-down or bottom-up approaches has remained challenging in the field of active plasmonics. We demonstrate the realization of DNA-assembled reconfigurable plasmonic metamolecules, which can respond to a wide range of pH changes in a programmable manner. This programmability allows for selective reconfiguration of different plasmonic metamolecule species coexisting in solution through simple pH tuning. This approach enables discrimination of chiral plasmonic quasi-enantiomers and arbitrary tuning of chiroptical effects with unprecedented degrees of freedom. Our work outlines a new blueprint for implementation of advanced active plasmonic systems, in which individual structural species can be programmed to perform multiple tasks and functions in response to independent external stimuli.