Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy Substrates Based on Nanoporous Silicon and Pattern Transfer

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering enhances the weak Raman scattering by using a roughened metal-coated surface as a catalyst. Roughness in the nanometer range provides the best enhancement. The nanostructures for the surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrates, in this work, are generated...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Malempati, Pallavi Rao
Other Authors: Hah, Dooyoung
Format: Others
Language:en
Published: LSU 2011
Subjects:
Online Access:http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-11112011-103621/
Description
Summary:Surface-enhanced Raman scattering enhances the weak Raman scattering by using a roughened metal-coated surface as a catalyst. Roughness in the nanometer range provides the best enhancement. The nanostructures for the surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrates, in this work, are generated using an electrochemical etching process on silicon substrates. The patterns of nanoporous silicon thus generated are transferred onto transparent polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrates using the lift-off process. An incomplex sputtering technique is employed to coat this substrate with a ~20 nm aluminum layer. Rhodamine 6G (R6G) molecules, when adsorbed to this metal surface, form the final SERS substrate that undergoes Raman spectroscopy characterization. This technique is expected to be useful when simple and photolithography-free techniques need to be employed for SERS substrate fabrication.