Silver-doped nanocomposite glass as a base material for fine metallodielectric microstructuring

A simple technique to prepare large-area, regular microstructures in glass containing silver nanoparticles is presented. Here the modification of spatial distribution of the nanoparticles is achieved using a direct current (DC) electric field at moderately elevated temperatures. The technique exploits the recently reported effect of "electric field-assisted dissolution" (EFAD) of silver nanoparticles during which the silver nanoparticles embedded in a glass matrix can be destroyed and dissolved in the glass in form of Ag+ ions by a combination of an intense DC electric field (similar to 1kV) and moderately elevated temperature (similar to 280 degrees C). This process can lead to a total transparency of the nanocomposite glasses, which to our knowledge can not be achieved via any other technique.

In this work, the possibility to produce orderly-oriented array of embedded, 2-D, micron size optical structures in silverdoped nanocomposite glass is demonstrated. This could lead to an easy way for production of many useful optical devices based on the composite materials.