The interaction of an incident electromagnetic field with the plasmonically active metal nanostructures results in local field enhancement. The huge enhancement establishes a number of new effects and may be used for analytical purposes. By this means one can overcome the limitations in sensitivity of classical Raman spectroscopy. One focus and challenge of our work is the generation of a reproducible SERS technology (SERS – Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy).

Fields of work:

Lithographically prepared SERS-active substrates

Such substrates may overcome the statistically defined character of common SERS-active nanostructures (e.g. nanoparticles or rough metal films), thus opening the way to reproducible, ultra-sensitive, and quantitatively interpretable measurement.