Determining molecular orientation via single molecule SERS in a plasmonic nano-gap

Marshall, ARL; Stokes, J; Viscomi, FN; Proctor, JE; Gierschner, J; Bouillard, J-SG; Adawi, AM

Abstract

In this work, plasmonic nano-gaps consisting of a silver nanoparticle coupled to an extended silver film have been fully optimized for single molecule Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) spectroscopy. The SERS signal was found to be strongly dependent on the particle size and the molecule orientation with respect to the field inside the nano-gap. Using Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) simulations to complement the experimental measurements, the complex interplay between the excitation enhancement and the emission enhancement of the system as a function of particle size were highlighted. Additionally, in conjunction with Density Functional Theory (DFT), the well-defined field direction in the nano-gap enables to recover the orientation of individual molecules.

Citation

Marshall, A., Stokes, J., Viscomi, F., Proctor, J., Gierschner, J., Bouillard, J., & Adawi, A. (2017). Determining molecular orientation via single molecule SERS in a plasmonic nano-gap. Nanoscale, 9(44), 17415-17421. https://doi.org/10.1039/c7nr05107g

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 2, 2017
• Publication Date: Oct 4, 2017
• Deposit Date: Nov 21, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 4, 2018
• Journal: Nanoscale
• Print ISSN: 2040-3364
• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 44
• Pages: 17415-17421
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/c7nr05107g
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c7nr05107g
• Related Public URLs: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/journals/journalissues/nr#!recentarticles&adv