Cetin, Arif E.Yilmaz, CihanGalarreta, Betty C.Yilmaz, GizemAltug, HaticeBusnaina, Ahmed2020-03-122020-03-122020-03-122020-02-1010.1007/s11468-020-01137-3https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/167210WOS:000516068400001The past two decades have witnessed the explosion of activities in the field of surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). SERS platforms employ nano-structures that excite plasmonic modes with large local electromagnetic fields localized within small gap spaces between each constituting feature. Although the research-oriented SERS platforms yield significant signal enhancements to identify even single molecules, practical SERS-based sensors have not been fully introduced yet. The main reason behind this absence is the need for a cost-effective and reliable manufacturing method for controllable fabrication of plasmonic nano-gaps over large areas. In this article, we introduced a novel manufacturing process that enables fast and scalable fabrication of highly uniform sub-10-nm gaps that could yield large SERS signals. In this process, a conventional electroplating technique is used to produce unique nano-mushroom antenna arrays on a conducting substrate, resulting in controllable gap spaces between mushroom heads. By understanding the nature of mushroom shape antenna formation, we demonstrated the control of inter-metallic gaps down to 5 nm. We showed that the manufactured nano-structures yield Raman enhancements more than 10(8). Providing such large SERS signals that are uniform over large areas, our cost-effective fabrication technique could be very critical to realize practical SERS devices.Chemistry, PhysicalNanoscience & NanotechnologyMaterials Science, MultidisciplinaryChemistryScience & Technology - Other TopicsMaterials Scienceplasmonicssurface enhanced raman spectroscopynano-fabricationscatteringnanostructuresnanogaptext::journal::journal article::research article