Nanoantenna effect of surface-enhanced Raman scattering: managing light with plasmons at the nanometer scale

Abstract

Manipulating light on the nanometer scale is a challenging topic not only from a fundamental point of view, but also for applications aiming toward the design of miniature optical devices. Nanoplasmonics is a rapidly emerging branch of photonics, which offers variable means to manipulate light using surface plasmon excitations on metal nanostructures. As a spectroscopic phenomenon discovered nearly 40 years ago, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has been an active topic of fundamental and applied researches. The dominating electromagnetic enhancement in SERS is caused by surface plasmon resonances. This is a typical example of manipulating light intensity with plasmons. Here, we will review the recent SERS studies related to nanoantenna effects on different metal nanostructures based on electromagnetic enhancement. Three aspects will be the focus in this paper: (1) the coupled nanostructures which act as receiving and emitting antenna that can generate enormous SERS enhancement ~E4 even enough for single molecule SERS. (2) The polarization of SERS at the single molecule limit, including the linear and circular polarizations can be manipulated using designed asymmetric antennas. Such an effect can make the traditional 1/2 and 1/4 wave plates miniaturized to the nanometer scale. (3) Combining nanoantenna and waveguiding effects, remote excitation of SERS can be realized, which may open a new area of single molecule SERS on nanophotonic circuits.