Localized surface plasmon resonance induced excellent solar-shielding ability for TiN nanoparticles-based hybrid polymer optical foils with high transparency

Abstract

Abstract Titanium nitride (TiN), as a representative refractory plasmonic material, can arouse localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) absorption in visible region when its size is reduced to nanometer scale with good dispersion. Herein, a citric acid assisted sol-gel method was introduced to synthesize well-defined TiN nanoparticles which were well dispersed in organic solution and further applied to prepare organic-inorganic optical foils. The color of the hybrid film was not yellow but deep blue owing to the strong absorption peak of TiN nanoparticles near 730\u202fnm, and meanwhile TiN nanoparticles-based foils possess a strong visible covering power even superior to that of carbon black. The small, well-dispersed TiN nanoparticles dispersed in polymer foil can make the thin film high transparent and available for some optical regulation fields like automobile, architecture and other non-linear optical fields. To sum up, this study has attempted to propose a general strategy way for making transparent composite optical foils directly by embedding the multifunctional inorganic nanomaterials into organic polymer hosts.