Plasmon tuning of nano-Au in dichroic devitrified antimony glass nanocomposites by refractive index control

Tuning of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) band of Au0 (587–611 nm) has been demonstrated by controlling the refractive index (1.8349–2.0006) of the encapsulating matrix in a new series of nano-Au0-antimony glass (K2O–B2O3–Sb2O3) dichroic devitrified composites. They have been synthesized by a single-step melt-quench in situ thermochemical reduction technique without using any external reducing agent or additional processing step. Dichroic behavior is due to elliptical shape of Au0 nanoparticles having 13–18 nm size range and aspect ratio about 1.2 according to transmission electron microscopic image. X-ray and selected area electron diffractions manifest the growth of (1 1 1) and (2 0 0) crystallographic planes of Au.