Issue 2, 2017

Nano-rescaling of gold films on polystyrene: thermal management for SERS

Abstract

Nano-textured Au surfaces were prepared on pre-stretched 2D polystyrene (PS) sheets sputtered with different thicknesses of Au. The Au-coated PS was subjected to thermal annealing above the glass transition temperature at ∼150 °C, thus undergoing surface area rescaling via a volume phase transition. The yellow color of the Au changed from the typical mirror-like appearance to a diffusive dark yellow, progressing to dark brown at the smallest feature size, hence, electromagnetic energy was coupled into the substrate. While the surface area footprint is the same after shrinking the PS, the roughness can be modified from the nano- to the micro-scale for different initial thicknesses of sputtered Au. The nanometer-sized features of surface wrinkles on the Au films make them suitable for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensors that can reach ∼104 counts per s per mW. The thermal diffusivity of the contracted surfaces was determined by a non-contact temperature wave method and was larger than that of PS (α ≃ 1.1 × 10−7 m2 s−1) with a linear scaling on the Au thickness: each 10 nm addition of Au increased the diffusivity by 4%. This allows improved heat dissipation from the laser irradiated spot during SERS measurements.

Graphical abstract: Nano-rescaling of gold films on polystyrene: thermal management for SERS

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
31 Aug 2016
Accepted
30 Nov 2016
First published
30 Nov 2016

Nanoscale, 2017,9, 690-695

Nano-rescaling of gold films on polystyrene: thermal management for SERS

A. Balčytis, M. Ryu, G. Seniutinas, P. R. Stoddart, M. A. Al Mamun, J. Morikawa and S. Juodkazis, Nanoscale, 2017, 9, 690 DOI: 10.1039/C6NR06904E

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements