Facilely Flexible Imprinted Hemispherical Cavity Array for Effective Plasmonic Coupling as SERS Substrate

The focusing field effect excited by the cavity mode has a positive coupling effect with the metal localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect, which can stimulate a stronger local electromagnetic field. Therefore, we combined the self-organizing process for component and array manufacturing with imprinting technology to construct a cheap and reproducible flexible polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanocavity array decorating with the silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs). The distribution of the local electromagnetic field was simulated theoretically, and the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) performance of the substrate was evaluated experimentally. The substrate shows excellent mechanical stability in bending experiments. It was proved theoretically and experimentally that the substrate still provides a stable signal when the excited light is incident from different angles. This flexible substrate can achieve low-cost, highly sensitive, uniform and conducive SERS detection, especially in situ detection, which shows a promising application prospect in food safety and biomedicine.

Automated summary

The study combined self-organizing process and imprinting technology to construct a cheap and reproducible flexible PVA nanocavity array, enhancing the SERS performance. Experimental results showed the substrate exhibited good mechanical stability in bending experiments and provided stable signals even with light incident from different angles.