# Resonant laser excitation for nanoscale photocatalytic gold growth on patterned templates

## TL;DR

This paper explores using laser excitation to control gold particle growth on nanostructured templates, mimicking neural connections for potential applications in neuromorphic computing.

## Contribution

The study introduces a method to manipulate gold growth using resonant laser excitation on patterned TiO2 templates.

## Key findings

- Resonant excitation increases DPVBi emission for specific grating periods.
- Nanostructured TiO2 enables controlled gold particle growth under resonant laser conditions.
- Non-resonant excitation results in sparse gold particle distribution.

## Abstract

Resonant excitation of nanooptical templates offers great advantages for localized photocatalytic activity. We present a design, fabrication and characterization of nanostructured TiO2 to mimic the dynamic behavior of growth of long-range axonal connections in neuromorphic computing architectures. We use the photocatalytic activity of the TiO2 to reduce gold particles from a precursor solution and influence the localized gold growth with light-dependent field enhancements inside the TiO2. Nanooptical templates with different grating parameters are suggested to individually control the formation of metal lines on the surface. We show with an optical probe that resonant excitation with a UV laser is achieved with the nanostructures. 150 nm of DPVBi is used as an emissive layer on top of the patterned TiO2 to visualize the field enhancement. The experiments show an emission increase for selected grating periods depending on the excitation setup. For nanostructures with only a few lateral repetitions, the quality factor of the resonance wavelength is lower which leads to a broader range of grating periods that resonantly increase the emission of DPVBi. We perform growth experiments and find dense coverage of gold particles on the nanostructured lines, if excited resonantly. For non-resonant excitation and on planar TiO2 areas, gold particles are sparsely scattered. These results show that local manipulation of dynamic growth characteristics is achieved.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-026-36556-5.