The transport of NPs on the surface may expose some portion of the bare silica surface to the etchant solution. Here, the coated thin layer of Au NP is not able to provide an efficient etchant mask for chemical etching and further etching occurs without any mediators (NPs). This might be the reason for the insignificant difference observed in the transmittance between the coated surface and the bare silica after etching for a long time. In dry etching, as the position of the particle is not affected by the exposure of plasma, it may generate more NP-mediated uniform surface textures. This will provide significant variation in transmittance/scattering compared to the etched bare silica surface. Therefore, masking with Au NP contributes an easy and constructive technique for silica etching with significant optical properties. The use of preformed NPs also removes the need for high post-annealing and hence this process may also be extended to textured etching of polymeric substrates such as polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Since PDMS is used extensively in printed electronics as a transparent substrate/encapsulant such etching can lead to new optoelectronic applications and will be the focus of future work.