Abstract
The synthesis of nanostructured surfaces and thin films has potential applications in the field of plasmonics, including plasmon sensors, plasmon-enhanced molecular spectroscopy (PEMS), plasmon-mediated chemical reactions (PMCRs), and so on. In this article, we review various nanostructured surfaces and thin films obtained by the combination of nanosphere lithography (NSL) and physical vapor deposition. Plasmonic nanostructured surfaces and thin films can be fabricated by controlling the deposition process, etching time, transfer, fabrication routes, and their combination steps, which manipulate the formation, distribution, and evolution of hotspots. Based on these hotspots, PEMS and PMCRs can be achieved. This is especially significant for the early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and controlling the growth locations of Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs) in nanostructured surfaces and thin films, which is expected to enhance the optical and sensing performance.
Highlights
The synthesis of nanostructured surfaces and thin films using physical vapor deposition, such as pulsed laser deposition, magnetron sputtering, thermal evaporation, e-beam evaporation, among others, plays a key role in the development of a variety of applications in nanoplasmonics, nanoscale photovoltaic devices, nanogenerators, flexible or nanobiological sensors, and so on [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
Though many efforts have been made to prepare nanostructured surfaces and thin films by electron-beam lithography (EBL)-based methodology, challenges remain in the manipulation of hotspots that are usually observed in the sub-10 nm metallic nanogaps, where the energy is localized to subwavelength dimensions due to the design of the nanostructured surfaces and thin films
The formation, distribution, and evolution of hotspots can be manipulated by fabricating novel nanohoneycomb and SiO2−Ag nanocap arrays to control the enhancement of the EM field, which has potential applications in plasmon-enhanced molecular spectroscopy (PEMS) and plasmon-mediated chemical reactions (PMCRs)
Summary
The synthesis of nanostructured surfaces and thin films using physical vapor deposition, such as pulsed laser deposition, magnetron sputtering, thermal evaporation, e-beam evaporation, among others, plays a key role in the development of a variety of applications in nanoplasmonics, nanoscale photovoltaic devices, nanogenerators, flexible or nanobiological sensors, and so on [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. For devices based on nanostructured surfaces and thin films, diverse high-fidelity geometry is important for the performance of the devices in practical applications. The multiple wet processes in EBL-based methodology is extremely time-consuming and may introduce additional contaminations on the nanostructured surfaces, which may have non-negligible effects on the quality of nanostructured surfaces and degrade the performance of the devices. It significantly hinders the direct applicability of the devices, especially in the field of nanostructure-based plasmonics, generators, sensors, and so on. Though many efforts have been made to prepare nanostructured surfaces and thin films by EBL-based methodology, challenges remain in the manipulation of hotspots that are usually observed in the sub-10 nm metallic nanogaps, where the energy is localized to subwavelength dimensions due to the design of the nanostructured surfaces and thin films
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