Tailoring the Optical Properties of Sputter-Deposited Gold Nanostructures on Nanostructured Titanium Dioxide Templates Based on In Situ Grazing-Incidence Small-Angle X-ray Scattering Determined Growth Laws.

Gold/titanium dioxide (Au/TiO2) nanohybrid materials have been widely applied in various fields because of their outstanding optical and photocatalytic performance. By state-of-the-art polymer templating, it is possible to make uniform nanostructured TiO2 layers with potentially large-scale processing methods. We use customized polymer templating to achieve TiO2 nanostructures with different morphologies. Au/TiO2 hybrid thin films are fabricated by sputter deposition. An in-depth understanding of the Au morphology on the TiO2 templates is achieved with in situ grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) during the sputter deposition. The resulting Au nanostructure is largely influenced by the TiO2 template morphology. Based on the detailed understanding of the Au growth process, characteristic distances can be selected to achieve tailored Au nanostructures at different Au loadings. For selected sputter-deposited Au/TiO2 hybrid thin films, the optical response with a tailored localized surface plasmon resonance is demonstrated.