title: Influence of the number of nanoparticles on the enhancement properties of surface-enhanced Raman scattering active area: sensitivity versus repeatability.
abstract: In the present work, the combination of chemical immobilization with electron beam lithography enables the production of sensitive and reproducible SERS-active areas composed of stochastic arrangements of gold nanoparticles. The number of nanoparticles was varied from 2 to 500. Thereby a systematic analysis of these SERS-active areas allows us to study SERS efficiency as a function of the number of nanoparticles. We found that the experimental parameters are critical, in particular the size of the SERS-active area must be comparable to the effective area of excitation to obtained reproducible SERS measurements. The sensitivity has also been studied by deducing the number of NPs that generate the enhancement. With this approach we demonstrates that the maximum enhancement, the best sensitivity, is obtained with the smallest number of nanoparticles that is resonant at a given excitation wavelength.
authors.affiliation: Interfaces, Traitements, Organisations et Dynamique des Systèmes, Université Paris7-Denis Diderot, UMR 7086, Bâtiment Lavoisier, 15 rue Jean de Baïf, 75205 Paris, France. jeremie.margueritat@u-bourgogne.fr
authors.forename: Jérémie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Margueritat
authors.forename: Hélène
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gehan
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Grand
authors.forename: Georges
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lévi
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Aubard
authors.forename: Nordin
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Félidj
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bouhelier
authors.forename: Gerard
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Colas-Des-Francs
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Markey
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Marco De Lucas
authors.forename: Alain
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dereux
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Finot
mesh_terms: D003460:Crystallization / Q000379:methods*; D008027:Light; D046911:Macromolecular Substances / Q000737:chemistry; D008422:Materials Testing; D008968:Molecular Conformation; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D010316:Particle Size; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D013059:Spectrum Analysis, Raman / Q000379:methods*; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D046911:Macromolecular Substances