Topological Network Properties of Fractal-Like Metallic Nanoparticle Patterns and Their Effects on Optical Resonances

Abstract

Fractal-like nanoparticle two-dimensional patterns forming in diffusion-limited aggregation show variant spatial patterns. However, they have invariant statistical properties in their network topologies, even though their formation is completely in self-assembled processes. One of the outputs from these topological properties is optical resonances at invariant frequencies, which is a required feature of a metamaterial alternative. Fractal-like metallic patterns studied here in both experiments and theoretical models exhibit similar resonance frequencies in the infrared-ray range, and they depend on the unit length of nanoparticles composing arbitrary fractal-like structures. The scheme of analysis applied here using complex network theory does not only reveal the topological properties of the nanoparticle network, but points out their optical and possibly other physical potentials arising from their geometrical properties.