Self-standing corrugated Ag and Au-nanorods for plasmonic applications

We use home-made Si-supported anodized alumina thin film templates for the electrodeposition of large area self-standing Ag- and Au-nanorod (Au-NR) arrays. The deposition conditions chosen, i.e. electrolyte composition and deposition voltage, lead to a corrugated rod morphology, particularly for Au-NRs. Instantaneous nucleation followed by diffusion-controlled growth are thought to be the dominating mechanism for the morphology observed. Diffuse reflectance spectra show specific behaviours of Ag- and Au-NRs with longitudinal and transverse plasmon resonance modes and additional modes for Ag-NRs. The activity of the NR arrays as substrates for molecular detection using Raman scattering and Rhodamine 6G (R6G) as a model dye strongly depends on noble metal. R6G concentrations down to 1 pM are detected on the corrugated arrays yielding an effective enhancement factor (EF) of approximately 2 × 1010 for Ag-NRs and 1 × 109 for Au-NRs. The latter is the highest ever obtained for Au-nanostructures. Both nanostructures provide an enhancement that is high enough to detect single molecules using Raman scattering. The results are rationalized in terms of morphology effects on electromagnetic field intensity. © 2011 The Royal Society of Chemistry