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Fabrication of cost-effective, highly reproducible large area arrays of nanotriangular pillars for surface enhanced Raman scattering substrates

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Abstract

Development of cost-effective, highly reproducible non-conventional fabrication techniques for anisotropic metal nanostructures is essential to realizing potential applications of plasmonic devices, photonic devices, and surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) phenomenon based sensors. This report highlights the fabrication of nanotriangle arrays via nanoimprinting to overcome difficulties in creating large-area SERS active substrates with uniform, reproducible Raman signals. Electron beam lithography of anisotropic nanostructures, formation of arrays of nanotriangles in silicon and the transfer of triangular shapes to polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) sheets via nanoimprinting have not been reported elsewhere. The reuse of silicon masters offers potential for production of low cost SERS substrates. The SERS activity and reproducibility of nanotriangles are illustrated and a consistent average enhancement factor of up to ~2.9 × 1011, which is the highest value reported for a patterned SERS substrate, is achieved.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nanophotonic & Optoelectronic Devices Laboratory, Department of Physics, Cochin University of Science & Technology, Kochi, 682 022, India

    Kudilatt Hasna & Madambi Kunjukuttan Jayaraj

  2. Department of Instrumentation, Cochin University of Science & Technology, Kochi, 682 022, India

    Kudilatt Hasna & Kumaran Rajeev Kumar

  3. Department of Energy Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Maharashtra, 400 076, India

    Aldrin Antony

  4. Department of Enginyeria Electronica, Universitat Politecnica Catalunya, C/Jordi Girona, 31, Modul C4, Barcelona, 08034, Spain

    Joaquim Puigdollers

Authors
  1. Kudilatt Hasna
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  2. Aldrin Antony
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  3. Joaquim Puigdollers
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  4. Kumaran Rajeev Kumar
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  5. Madambi Kunjukuttan Jayaraj
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Correspondence to Madambi Kunjukuttan Jayaraj.

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Fabrication of cost-effective, highly reproducible large area arrays of nanotriangular pillars for surface enhanced Raman scattering substrates

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Hasna, K., Antony, A., Puigdollers, J. et al. Fabrication of cost-effective, highly reproducible large area arrays of nanotriangular pillars for surface enhanced Raman scattering substrates. Nano Res. 9, 3075–3083 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1190-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1190-y

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