Experimental and numerical investigation of biosensors plasmonic substrates induced differences by e-beam, soft and hard UV-NIL fabrication techniques

This paper compares plasmonic substrates manufactured by three lithography methods: E-beam, soft and hard UV NanoImprint Lithography. The different plasmonic modes existing in samples made of an array of gold nanostructures on gold film are investigated for biochemical detections taking advantage of Surface Plasmon Resonance Imaging (SPRI) and Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS). Recently, it has been shown that this geometry of substrate is of great interest for both SPRI and SERS measurements. A comparison of their performances obtained by the different lithographic methods is provided. In particular, due to limitations in NanoImprint Lithographic techniques, the impact of sidewall geometry of nanostructures is investigated in regard to plasmonic properties. Thus, experimental optical characterization analyses have been carried out on samples and compared with the numerical simulations. Keywords: Plasmonics, E-beam lithography, Nanoimprint lithography, UV-NIL, SPRI, SER