Nanostructures fabricated in chalcogenide glass for use as surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrates

We describe chalcogenide glass (ChG)-based nanostructures for use as substrates for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). Such substrates were fabricated by exploiting the photosensitivity of ChG. This allows convenient control of the shape, size, and spacing of the nanostructures. The substrates were used to investigate the sample-concentration and excitation-power dependences of SERS from Rhodamine 6G molecules. A sensitivity of 1 muM was achieved at low excitation irradiance, and a semilinear concentration dependence was found for concentrations below 100 muM, demonstrating the potential of these ChG-based SERS substrates for high-sensitivity quantitative analysis.