The Nanofabrication includes plasmonic and nanooptical structures like SERS substrates, photonic crystals and some state of the art “artificial” surfaces for optical applications like “Metamaterials” are under investigations.

Our technology is based on e-beam lithography and Dry etch-techniques. One goal of our investigation is the realisation of reproducible substrates for use in Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS). The technical challenge consisted of the reproducible formation of arrays of very small and sharp-edged metallic nanostructures which are necessary for a surface electric field enhancement. The metallic nanostructures are made from gold (Au), are periodically arranged with a pitch of 250 nm and have sharp edges with corner radii of smaller than 20 nm. A SERS-field, an array of these metallic nanostructures, has dimensions of 200×200µm².