Effective SERS-active substrates composed of hierarchical micro/nanostructured arrays based on reactive ion etching and colloidal masks

A facile route has been proposed for the fabrication of morphology-controlled periodic SiO2 hierarchical micro/nanostructured arrays by reactive ion etching (RIE) using monolayer colloidal crystals as masks. By effectively controlling the experimental conditions of RIE, the morphology of a periodic SiO2 hierarchical micro/nanostructured array could be tuned from a dome-shaped one to a circular truncated cone, and finally to a circular cone. After coating a silver thin layer, these periodic micro/nanostructured arrays were used as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-active substrates and demonstrated obvious SERS signals of 4-Aminothiophenol (4-ATP). In addition, the circular cone arrays displayed better SERS enhancement than those of the dome-shaped and circular truncated cone arrays due to the rougher surface caused by physical bombardment. After optimization of the circular cone arrays with different periodicities, an array with the periodicity of 350 nm exhibits much stronger SERS enhancement and possesses a low detection limit of 10(-10)M 4-ATP. This offers a practical platform to conveniently prepare SERS-active substrates.