In this talk, I will discuss the rational engineering of a novel nanostructure that is based on gold-coated nanoscale polymer fingers made by nanoimprinting technique. The nanofingers are flexible and their tips can be brought together to trap molecules, while at the same time the gold-coated fingertips form a reliable Raman hot spot for molecule detection and identification based on surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy(SERS). The molecule self-limiting gap size control between fingertips ensures ultimate SERS enhancement for sensitive molecule detection. In addition to the demonstrated SERS application, it is believed that these type of structures, resulting from top-down meeting self-assembly, will lead to new paths for other applications, such as plasmonics, meta-materials, and other nanophotonic systems.

Gold nanofinger structures for SERS applications

242nd National Meeting (2011)

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