Laser-assisted nanowetting (LAN): Hierarchical Nanocomposites containing polymer/gold nanorods on breath figure films

Polymer nanostructures have drawn tremendous interest in recent years owing to their unique properties and widespread applications in various fields. It is still a great challenge, however, to develop novel methods that are capable of preparing hierarchical polymer structures with patterning ability. To conquer this challenge, in this work, we demonstrate the fabrication of hierarchical structures containing polystyrene (PS)/gold nanorods (AuNRs) by combining the modified breath figure method and the laser-assisted nanowetting (LAN) method. PS/PS-AuNRs films are dipped into good/poor solvents (CHCl3/MeOH) mixture solutions using the modified breath figure method to form the porous films with micrometer-sized pores. Subsequently, the porous films are brought in contact with anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates and shone by laser beams. The AuNRs then absorb the laser energy and heat the surrounding polymer chains via plasmonic heating, inducing the PS chains to wet the nanopores of the AAO templates. As a result, hierarchical PS/PS-AuNRs films with controlled regions and dimensions can be obtained. This study opens a new research direction for developing hierarchical polymer structures using porous templates. [Display omitted] •The fabrication of hierarchical structures containing polystyrene (PS) /gold nanorods (AuNRs) is demonstrated.•The modified breath figure method is used to form the porous films.•The AuNRs then absorb the laser energy and heat the surrounding polymer chains via plasmonic heating.•Hierarchical PS/PS-AuNRs films with controlled regions and dimensions can be obtained.