Microfabricated polymer-substrates for SERS

• Published in: Microelectronic engineering 2012-10, Vol.98, p.444-447
• Main Authors: Huebner, Uwe, Weber, Karina, Cialla, Dana, Haehle, Robert, Schneidewind, Henrik, Zeisberger, Matthias, Mattheis, Roland, Meyer, Hans-Georg, Popp, Juergen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: ALD; Applied sciences; Atomic layer deposition; Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties; Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; E-beam lithography; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Fullerenes and related materials; Infrared and raman spectra and scattering; Low-dimensional structures (superlattices, quantum well structures, multilayers): structure, and nonelectronic properties; Materials science; Microelectronic fabrication (materials and surfaces technology); Optical properties and condensed-matter spectroscopy and other interactions of matter with particles and radiation; Other materials; Physics; Plasmonic; PMMA; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; SERS; Specific materials; Surfaces and interfaces; thin films and whiskers (structure and nonelectronic properties)
• ISSN: 0167-9317; 1873-5568
• DOI: 10.1016/j.mee.2012.05.036

[Display omitted] ► Homogenous and sensitive SERS-substrates based on surface metalized resist gratings. ► The approach combines e-beam lithography, atomic layer deposition and silver evaporation. ► The SERS enhancement is 4–5 orders of magnitude compared with the un-patterned film. ► The method enables disposable SERS substrates by using imprint techniques. A method using microfabricated resist masks as highly homogenous and sensitive substrates for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is introduced. Our approach combines e-beam lithography for a polymer (PMMA) mask preparation, atomic layer deposition of aluminum-oxide as protection layer for the PMMA mask and silver evaporation for the SERS-active metal film. Compared to our former investigations on silver deposited etched quartz SERS-substrates these polymer based SERS substrates are easier to fabricate while showing the same reproducible signal enhancement across the whole grating area. The presented method provides high potential as it uses low-cost imprint techniques to pave the way towards low-cost SERS substrates in the future.