Molecular Sensing and Color Manipulation Based on Dimension-Controlled Plasmon-Enhanced Silicon Nanotube SERS Substrates

Abstract

The system of suspended gold nanoring on silicon nanotube substrate with enhanced light harvesting and electromagnetic field enhancements was proposed in the present study. The effects of outer/inner diameter (D/d) ratio of the ring and tube on the plasmonic behavior were studied by systemic simulations and experiments. In simulations, the high order quadrupole-dipole mode was also excited in addition to the typical dipole-dipole mode, and the resonant configurations were characterized by both electric field profile and resonant surface charge distribution. Experimentally, both dark-field and Raman microscopies were conducted to examine the plasmonic behavior. The plasmon-enhanced scattering could be controlled by tailoring the D/d ratio, and the dark-field image colors could be manipulated covering the visible range. Raman spectra using two excitation wavelengths were also recorded and showed good agreement with calculated enhancement factor which, in turn, provided the evidence of the evolution of resonance mode and denoted our designed structure as a potential candidate for surface-enhanced Raman scattering applications. ? 2018 American Chemical Society.