Glass nanoimprinted plasmonic nanostructure for high power laser stable surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy substrate

Abstract A high-power laser stable surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrate which can provide a SERS enhancement factor greater than 1012 was fabricated as an Ag metalized nanoimprinted glass nanohole array. A vitreous carbon (VC) nanopost stamp with a height of 82 nm, a pitch of 390 nm, and a nanopost diameter of 187 nm, was fabricated by carbonization of a replicated furan precursor from a silicon master pattern, and a glass nanohole pattern was imprinted using the VC nanostamp at a temperature of 690 °C and compression pressure of 0.6 MPa. An electromagnetic field analysis using the rigorous coupled-wave analysis was conducted to optimize the Ag layer to examine the SERS enhancement factor from glass SERS (GL-SERS) substrate. For comparison, a polymer SERS (PL-SERS) substrate was also fabricated by the deposition of the Ag layer on a UV nanoimprinted polymer nanohole pattern using the same VC nanostamp. A SERS enhancement factor (EF) of 107 was obtained from both GL- and PL-SERS substrates at a laser irradiation power of 100 mW. However, a SERS-EF of 1012 was achieved using the GL-SERS substrate with a laser irradiation power of 200 mW, however, the PL-SERS substrate was unable to withstand this irradiance.