Exploring the chemical enhancement for surface-enhanced Raman scattering with Au bowtie nanoantennas

Single metallic bowtie nanoantennas provide a controllable environment for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) of adsorbed molecules. Bowties have experimentally measured electromagnetic enhancements, enabling estimation of chemical enhancement for both the bulk and the few-molecule regime. Strong fluctuations of selected Raman lines imply that a small number of p-mercaptoaniline molecules on a single bowtie show chemical enhancement >10(7), much larger than previously believed, likely due to charge transfer between the Au surface and the molecule. This chemical sensitivity of SERS has significant implications for ultra-sensitive detection of single molecules.