The effect of silver thickness on the enhancement of polymer based SERS substrates

We investigated silver-covered polymer based nanogratings as substrates for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), in particular with respect to the thickness of the plasmonically active silver film. In order to obtain accurate geometrical input data for the simulation process, we inspected cross sections of the gratings prepared by breaking at cryogenic temperature. We noticed a strong dependence of the simulation results on geometrical variations of the structures. Measurements revealed that an increasing silver film thickness on top of the nanogratings leads to a blue shift of the plasmonic resonance, as predicted by numerical simulations, as well as to an increased field enhancement for an excitation at 488 nm. We found a clear deviation of the experimental data compared to the simulated results for very thin silver films due to an island-like growth at a silver thickness below 20 nm. In order to investigate the SERS activity. we carried out measurements with crystal violet as a model analyte at an excitation wavelength of 488 nm. The SERS enhancement increases up to a silver thickness of about 30 nm, whereas it remains nearly constant for thicker silver films.