Surface-enhanced Raman scattering on dual-layer metallic grating structures

Dual-layer Metallic grating (DMG) structures as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates are studied using benzenethiol as the probe analyte. The DMG structure consists of a SiO2 grating and 100-nm-thick gold coating layers. An enhancement factor of 10(5) is achieved by optimizing the SiO2 grating height within the range from 165 to 550 nm. The enhancement factor dependence on the SiO2 grating height is due to the surface plasmon excitation, which is dependent on the polarization of the incident light, and confirmed by finite difference time domain simulations. This study demonstrates the advantages of high uniformity, reproducibility and sensitivity in the DMG structures for SERS applications.