Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering from Metallic Nanostructures: Bridging the Gap between the Near-Field and Far-Field Responses

We present here a detailed study of the complex relationship between the electromagnetic near-field and far-field responses of real nanostructured metallic surfaces. The near-field and far-field responses are specified in terms of (spectra of) the surface-enhanced Raman-scattering enhancement factor (SERS EF) and optical extinction, respectively. First, it is shown that gold nanorod- and nanotube-array substrates exhibit three distinct localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs): a longitudinal, a transverse, and a cavity mode. The cavity mode simultaneously has the largest impact on the near-field behavior (as observed through the SERS EF) and the weakest optical interaction: It has a near-field-type character. The transverse and longitudinal modes have a significant impact on the far-field behavior but very little impact on SERS: They have a far-field-type character. We confirm the presence of the cavity mode using a combination of SERS EF spectra, electron microscopy, and electromagnetic modeling and thus clearly illustrate and explain the (lack of) correlation between the SERS EF spectra and the optical response in terms of the contrasting character of the three LSPRs. In doing so, we experimentally demonstrate that, for a surface that supports multiple LSPRs, the near-field and far-field properties can in fact be tuned almost independently. It is further demonstrated that small changes in geometrical parameters that tune the spectral location of the LPSRs can also drastically influence the character of these modes, resulting in certain unusual behavior, such as the far-field resonance redshift as the near-field resonance blueshifts. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.3.011001