Leveraging nanoscale plasmonic modes to achieve reproducible enhancement of light.

Abstract

The strongly enhanced and localized optical fields that occur within the gaps between metallic nanostructures can be leveraged for a wide range of functionality in nanophotonic and optical metamaterial applications. Here, we introduce a means of precise control over these nanoscale gaps through the application of a molecular spacer layer that is self-assembled onto a gold film, upon which gold nanoparticles (NPs) are deposited electrostatically. Simulations using a three-dimensional finite element model and measurements from single NPs confirm that the gaps formed by this process, between the NP and the gold film, are highly reproducible transducers of surface-enhanced resonant Raman scattering. With a spacer layer of roughly 1.6 nm, all NPs exhibit a strong Raman signal that decays rapidly as the spacer layer is increased.

DOI
10.1021/nl102443p
Year
Chicago Citation
Hill, Ryan T., Jack J. Mock, Yaroslav Urzhumov, David S. Sebba, Steven J. Oldenburg, Shiuan-Yeh Chen, Anne A. Lazarides, Ashutosh Chilkoti, and David R. Smith. “Leveraging nanoscale plasmonic modes to achieve reproducible enhancement of light.” Nano Letters 10, no. 10 (October 2010): 4150–54. https://doi.org/10.1021/nl102443p.