Optical patterning of silver nanoparticle Langmuir-Blodgett films

We report on the optical patterning of Ag nanoparticle Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films deposited on glass substrates. Ag nanoparticles could be quickly desorbed from the substrate without surface damage, when exposed to a nanosecond Nd:YAG laser pulse over threshold energy density. Well-aligned one-dimensional and two-dimensional patterns at the micrometer scale were fabricated in LB films by a simple spatial modulation of the laser beam. This parallel process enables the period and feature size of the pattern to be independently controlled, and may provide an effective method for nanoparticle pattering.