Nanofabrication of SERS Substrates for Single/Few Molecules Detection

  • GIANLUCA MELINO

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

Raman spectroscopy is among the most widely employed methods to investigate the properties of materials in several fields of study. Evolution in materials science allowed us to fabricate suitable substrates, at the nanoscale, capable to enhance the electromagnetic field of the signals coming from the samples which at this range turn out to be in most cases singles or a few molecules. This particular variation of the classical technique is called SERS (Surface Enanched Raman Spectroscopy). In this work, the enhancement of the electromagnetic field is obtained by manipulation of the optical properties of metals with respect to their size. By using electroless deposition (bottom up technique), gold and silver nanoparticles were deposited in nanostructured patterns obtained on silicon wafers by means of electron beam lithography (top down technique). Rhodamine 6G in aqueous solution at extremely low concentration (10-8 M) was absorbed on the resultant dimers and the collection of the Raman spectra demonstrated the high efficiency of the substrates.
Date of AwardMay 4 2015
Original languageEnglish (US)
Awarding Institution
  • Physical Sciences and Engineering
SupervisorEnzo Di Fabrizio (Supervisor)

Keywords

  • SERS
  • Nanofabrication
  • Top-down
  • Bottom-up
  • Raman
  • Detection

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