Self-assembly of Au nano-islands with tuneable organized disorder for highly sensitive SERS

Abstract

A thermophoretically driven Au aerosol deposition process is used for the self-assembly of thin films consisting of plasmonic nano-islands (NIs) with a controllable and highly reproducible degree of disorder resulting in long-range periodicity with self-similar properties and stochastically distributed hot-spots, benefitting their applications as SERS substrates.