Photothermal Manipulation of Plasmonic/Polymer Composite Nanoshell Arrays: Enhancing Lattice Order and Tunable Structural Color

Localized surface plasmon resonance of noble metal nanoparticles provides an efficient mechanism for light-to-heat conversion, enabling the post-assembly manipulation of hollow polymer nanoshells in a 2D array. Rapid photothermal heating of gold nanoparticles decorated on the inner surface of nanoshells vaporizes the encapsulated solvent, inducing volumetric expansion and controlled positional adjustment of the nanoshells pre-assembled on a solid substrate. This process leads to significant improvements in array ordering, along with noticeable enhancements in optical diffraction intensity and a tunable redshift in structural color. The magnitude of this photothermal-induced expansion can be controlled by manipulating the incident light intensity and the polymer nanoshell parameters, such as diameter and thickness. This photoresponsive system offers a unique and versatile platform for light-controlled structural color manipulation, including direct laser writing and patterning, opening new opportunities for advanced materials with dynamically tunable optical properties.