Introducing "Plasmene": Meet the artificial graphene !

We introduced Plasmene; in analogy to graphene; as freestanding, one-particle-thick, superlattice sheets of nanoparticles (“meta-atoms”) from the “plasmonic periodic table”, which has implications in many important research disciplines. Giant plasmene nanosheets (i.e., with nanoscale thickness but with macroscopic lateral dimensions) were as thin as ∼40 nm and as wide as ∼3 mm, corresponding to an aspect ratio of ∼75 000. Such robust giant nanosheets could be milled into one-dimensional nanoribbons and folded into three-dimensional origami. Both experimental and theoretical studies reveal that our giant plasmene nanosheets are analogues of graphene from the plasmonic nanoparticle family, simultaneously possessing unique structural features and plasmon propagation functionalities.

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