Reliable SERS substrates by the controlled assembly of nanoparticles

Abstract

Reliable SERS-based chemical sensors are attainable with the proper design of nanostructures on the enhancing surface. This proceeding addresses techniques for the immobilization and assembly of metal nanoparticles on substrates and the analysis of the reliability of these techniques with respect to producing effective SERS-based sensors. The fabrication methods that will be addressed are: the "vertical deposition" of nanoparticles on topography-textured substrates using capillary forces; the electrophoretic deposition of nanoparticles in templates prepared by e-beam lithography; and the assembly of nanoparticles through electrostatic interactions between the particles and microphase segregated block-copolymer films. Notably, the use of self-assembly makes these methods economically favorable. Our studies address both large area substrates and localized nanoscale structures. The properly-designed self-assembly approaches do not compromise the accuracy of the calculated enhancement factors, since no assumptions are made regarding the volume of the hot-spots. The reliability of the fabrication techniques is evaluated through the distribution of the enhancement factor values measured in hundreds of sensing sites. Correlations between Raman enhancement, geometry of aggregation and plasmon resonances will be presented. Optimizations of the SERS enhancement and the SERS substrate reliability were achieved through two strategies: (1) by controlling the inter-particle distance between metal nanoparticles in a two-dimensional lattice, and (2) by controlling the number and position of nanoparticles in small isolated clusters.