Microfabricated polymer-substrates for SERS

A method using microfabricated resist masks as highly homogenous and sensitive substrates for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is introduced. Our approach combines e-beam lithography for a polymer (PMMA) mask preparation, atomic layer deposition of aluminum-oxide as protection layer for the PMMA mask and silver evaporation for the SERS-active metal film. Compared to our former investigations on silver deposited etched quartz SERS-substrates these polymer based SERS substrates are easier to fabricate while showing the same reproducible signal enhancement across the whole grating area. The presented method provides high potential as it uses low-cost imprint techniques to pave the way towards low-cost SERS substrates in the future. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.