Topology optimization of surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrates

Abstract

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy is a powerful and versatile sensing method with a detection limit down to the single molecule level, given sufficiently high signal enhancement. In this article, we demonstrate how topology optimization (TopOpt) can be used for designing surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates adhering to realistic fabrication constraints. As an example, we experimentally demonstrated a SERS enhancement factor of 5 × 104 for the 604 cm−1 Raman line of rhodamine 6G using metal nanostructures with a critical dimension of 20 nm. We then show that, by relaxing the fabrication minimum-feature-size constraint, TopOpt may be used to design SERS substrates with orders of magnitude larger enhancement factor. The results validate topology optimization as an effective method for engineering optimized SERS nanostructures adhering to fabrication limitations.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Aug 09, 2021
Source ID
10.1063/5.0055148

Entities

People

  • Juejun Hu
  • Jérôme Michon
  • Rasmus E Christiansen
  • Steven G. Johnson
  • Ying Pan

Organizations

  • Army Research Office
  • Danish National Research Foundation
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • National Science Foundation

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Nanoscale Plasmonic Nanotechnology
  • Neural Network Machine Learning.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Graphene