Abstract
We have demonstrated the direct formation of prolate Ag nanoparticles with a quasi parallel major axis on a template layer of SiO2 having a strongly anisotropic surface morphology. The peculiar nanomorphology of the nanoparticles and template is physically self-organized owing to self-shadowing during oblique vacuum deposition. The resulting films exhibit anisotropic optical absorption due to the plasma resonance that is sensitive to the shape of the nanoparticles. Since our method can be applied to any combination of thin-film materials, it is useful for enabling plasmon-mediated optical phenomena and applying them to the development of various photonic devices such as thin-film polarizers.