We demonstrated the plasmonic metallic nanostructure fabricated by direct nanoimprinting of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). This approach combines the patterning and lift-off processes into a simple one-step process without the need for expensive patterning lithographies and the stringent requirement of the lift-off process for nanostructures. Good imprinting integrity was accomplished with a negligible residual layer. The dynamic optical responses of the imprinted gold pillars from AuNPs to the bulk material during the annealing process were investigated. The localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) properties of AuNPs or gold pillar arrays can be controlled and tuned during the annealing process. The sensitivity of the gold pillar array in terms of the wavelength shift per refractive index unit (RIU) reached 259 nm/RIU. The size of the imprinted gold pillars is highly scalable in our process. The corresponding resonance wavelengths can be widely tuned from the visible to infrared region by changing the size of the gold pillars, thus providing a wide range of sensing capability.

Phase transition that occurs around the spectral position of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) has various applications for light manipulation and refractive index sensing. Previous studies focused on phase responses of specific plasmonic structures, whereas the general theoretical analysis remains inadequate. In this study, we analytically modeled the phase spectra and the intensity spectra of silver nanodots with temporal coupled-mode theory. The phase transition occurs at the transmission dip, whereas the phase of reflection varies much more gradually. We further derived the equation for the slope of the phase at the transmission dip, which is a function of the rates of Ohmic dissipation and emission. The theoretical analysis is also applicable for wide varieties of LSPR systems and provides an intuitive physical mechanism for phase properties. Then, based on the fundamental discussion, we further investigated plasmonic phase retardation in anisotropic nanodots for the application of boosting the figure of merit (FOM) of refractive index sensing. The anisotropic nanodots induce plasmonic phase transitions, which spectrally split, for transmission waves polarized along the symmetric axes. Thus, anisotropy induces relative phase retardation in the narrow spectral region between the wavelengths of the LSPRs. We numerically manipulated the full width at half maximum of the ellipsometric spectra by adjusting the aspect ratio of the nanodots and observed an FOM of 24.3. In addition, experiments were performed to demonstrate the feasibility of this arrangement.