Nanoscale Melting of 3D Confined Azopolymers through Tunable Thermoplasmonics

Phase transitions that are thermally induced by using light at the nanoscale play a vital role in material science. Enhanced optical heating sustained by resonant nanostructures can turn out to be insignificant when a higher thermal conductivity of a heatsink, regardless of the pumping intensity. In this Letter, we demonstrate an approach to control an operating temperature range due to excess heating of a structured heatsink. A design rationale has been performed by using a 2D array of TiN:Si voxels, consisting of stacked TiN and Si pillars. All the TiN nanoheaters responsible for enhanced light absorption at plasmon resonance are of equal size, and the height of the Si pillars varies to control heat localization. A height-dependent temperature rise of the Si pillars is found from Raman thermometry. Herein, for the first time, we have determined the melting temperature of azobenzene-functionalized polymers at the nanoscale using the tunable plasmonic metasurface.