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Reviews in Plasmonics 2017 pp 55–76Cite as

A Lithography-Free and Chemical-Free Route to Wafer-Scale Gold Nanoisland Arrays for SERS

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Part of the book series: Reviews in Plasmonics ((RIP,volume 2017))

Abstract

Noble metal nanostructures, when coupled with Raman spectroscopy, serve as a signal-enhancing medium for detection of molecules at trace level. The combination of noble metal nanostructures and Raman spectroscopy improve the detection ability of Raman spectroscopy by a magnitude of 106 or higher. The phenomenon is known as surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). The underlying mechanism of SERS is the interaction between light and noble metal nanostructures, specifically, the localized surface plasmon resonance around noble metal nanostructures. Translating this profound phenomenon of SERS into practical utilizations requires reproducible and scalable approaches to manufacture SERS-active noble metal nanostructures with well-defined nanoscale patterns. Ideally, lithography-based nanofabrication techniques, for example, electron beam lithography, appear to be the best choice for this purpose due to their power in writing nanoscale patterns with the best preciseness. However, the extremely low throughput and high cost of nanolithography prevent it from being realistic when it comes to wafer-scale fabrication. As an alternative, noble metal nanoisland arrays prepared by a controllable solid-state dewetting process, namely, cyclic deposition and anneal, have shown effectiveness to produce SERS-active nanostructures with reproducibility, scalability, and tunability. In this chapter, the growth methodology and the advantages of gold nanoisland arrays prepared by cyclic deposition and anneal for SERS will be reviewed. Compared to traditionally single process of deposition and anneal, the cyclic growth brings an appealing benefit that the pattern of gold nanoislands, i.e., size, shape, spacing, density, etc., are tunable. Despite intrinsically inferior to lithography-based techniques in tuning the nanoscale pattern, the cyclic grown gold nanoisland arrays hold a huge edge in cost reduction. Moreover, this technique does not involve any chemicals but pristine bulk gold, making it a truly clean fabrication process. Along with the advantages of scalability and reproducibility, gold nanoisland arrays resulting from cyclic deposition and anneal stand out as one of the most promising solutions to making SERS technology practical.

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  1. Center for Materials, Devices and Integrated Systems, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12180, USA

    Xin Sun

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  1. Institute of Fluorescence, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Chris D. Geddes

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Sun, X. (2019). A Lithography-Free and Chemical-Free Route to Wafer-Scale Gold Nanoisland Arrays for SERS. In: Geddes, C. (eds) Reviews in Plasmonics 2017. Reviews in Plasmonics, vol 2017. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18834-4_3

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