Plasmon assisted photoinduced surface changes in amorphous chalcogenide layer

The influence of the localized surface plasmon fields on the light stimulated transformations in amorphous chalcogenide films was investigated. It was established that both in the gold nanoparticle array-chalcogenide film and in the gold film with nanohole array-chalcogenide film composites the plasmon fields, induced during the laser illumination of the structures, increase the efficiency of structural transformations, the related photo-darkening or bleaching, as well as of the volume change, surface deformations. The results, obtained for structures with As20Se80 amorphous layer, can be applied for other selected chalcogenide layers and fabrication of locally driven information recording media.

► Amorphous chalcogenides were investigated in this work.
► Plasmonic elements, gold nanoparticles and nanohole array in gold film were created.
► The influence of the plasmon field on the photoinduced changes was investigated.