Photo-Aligned Nematic Liquid Crystals Enable the Modulation of Thermoplasmonic Heating

We experimentally demonstrate that the plasmonic heat delivered by a single layer of homogeneously distributed gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), immobilized on glass substrate, can be optically tuned taking advantage properties an organic based azobenzene and nematic liquid crystal (NLC) molecules. The effect, which exploits dependence NLC refractive index value molecular director orientation, is realized using polarization-dependent, light-induced reorientation thin film photo-aligning material in contact with. reversibility induced enables active modulation photo-induced heat.