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Orientation-dependent nanostructure arrays based on anisotropic silicon wet-etching for repeatable surface-enhanced
1College of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, Hunan Province 410073, P. R. China. ptdong@nudt.edu.cn and Key Laboratory of New Molecular Diagnosis Technologies for Infectious Diseases, Institute of Radiation Medicine, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Beijing 100850, P. R. China. ruixiao203@sina.com sqwang@bmi.ac.cn.
Researchers developed a simple method to create highly sensitive plasmonic substrates for Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS). These nanostructured substrates offer excellent performance for SERS-based sensing and imaging applications.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Nanotechnology
- Spectroscopy
Background:
- Developing repeatable and sensitive plasmonic substrates is crucial for Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) applications.
- Existing fabrication methods often face challenges in achieving high performance and reproducibility.
Purpose of the Study:
- To fabricate high-performance SERS substrates using a novel, simple procedure.
- To investigate the formation mechanism of nanostructures via anisotropic wet etching.
- To evaluate the SERS performance, homogeneity, and reproducibility of the fabricated substrates.
Main Methods:
- Utilized nanosphere lithography and orientation-dependent anisotropic wet etching.
- Employed wafer-scale Cr-hole arrays as etching masks to create cavity-templates.
- Developed a peeling-off technique to obtain nanostructure arrays (pyramid, ridged-hexagon, quasi-triangle).
- Performed finite difference time domain (FDTD) calculations to visualize electromagnetic field distribution.
- Validated calculations with SERS characterization.
Main Results:
- Successfully fabricated high-density nanostructure arrays (2.5 × 10^7 mm^-2) facilitating "hot spot" generation.
- Achieved high SERS enhancement factors ranging from 10^6 to 10^7, with a maximum of 1.32 × 10^7 for ridged-hexagon arrays.
- Demonstrated excellent homogeneity and reproducibility with a relative standard deviation as low as 16.43%.
Conclusions:
- The proposed orientation-dependent nanostructure arrays offer a cost-effective and highly sensitive SERS platform.
- The excellent homogeneity and reproducibility stem from peeling substrates from identical templates.
- These nanostructures are promising candidates for in vitro and in situ detection and biosensing using SERS.
