Ultra-thin anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membranes are efficient templates for the fabrication of patterned nanostructures. Herein, a three-step etching method to control the morphology of AAO is described. The morphological evolution of the AAO during phosphoric acid etching is systematically investigated and a nonlinear growth mechanism during unsteady-state anodization is revealed. The thickness of the AAO can be quantitatively controlled from ∼100 nm to several micrometers while maintaining the tunablity of the pore diameter. The AAO membranes are robust and readily transferable to different types of substrates to prepare patterned plasmonic nanoarrays such as nanoislands, nanoclusters, ultra-small nanodots, and core-satellite superstructures. The localized surface plasmon resonance from these nanostructures can be easily tuned by adjusting the morphology of the AAO template. The custom AAO template provides a platform for the fabrication of low-cost and large-scale functional nanoarrays suitable for fundamental studies as well as applications including biochemical sensing, imaging, photocatalysis, and photovoltaics.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), a sensitive analytical technique that has single molecular sensitivity, has attracted continuous attention for both application and academic research. Semiconductor-based substrates with SERS activity present more practical applications, ranging from surface science to biological detection because of their lower cost and better biocompatibility compared with noble metals. However, the SERS performance of most semiconductor-based substrates is not significant. Herein, we propose the concept of semiconductor heterojunction-enhanced Raman scattering and design a vertical nanothickness heterojunction of W18O49/monolayer MoS2. As a result, the Raman signals of analyte Rhodamine 6G are detectable even with an ultralow concentration of 10–9 M on W18O49/monolayer MoS2 substrates. The enhancement factor is around 3.45 × 107. We confirmed from experiments and theory that the coupling of these two semiconductor materials could lead to dramatic enhancement of photoinduced charge-transfer processes, which enables giant heterojunction-enhanced Raman scattering.

We report on design and fabrication of patterned plasmonic dimer arrays by using an ultrathin anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membrane as a shadow mask. This strategy allows for controllable fabrication of plasmonic dimers where the location, size, and orientation of each particle in the dimer pairs can be independently tuned. Particularly, plasmonic dimers with ultrasmall nanogaps down to the sub-10 nm scale as well as a large dimer density up to 1.0 × 10 cm are fabricated over a centimeter-sized area. The plasmonic dimers exhibit significant surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) enhancement with a polarization-dependent behavior, which is well interpreted by finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations. Our results reveal a facile approach for controllable fabrication of large-area dimer arrays, which is of fundamental interest for plasmon-based applications in surface-enhanced spectroscopy, biochemical sensing, and optoelectronics.

Semiconducting surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) materials have attracted tremendous attention for their good signal uniformity, chemical stability, and biocompatibility. Here, a new concept to design high sensitivity semiconducting SERS substrates through integration of both amorphous and nonstoichiometric features of WO3−x thin films is presented. The integration of these two features provides narrower bandgap, additional defect levels within the bandgap, stronger exciton resonance, and higher electronic density of states near the Fermi level. These characteristics lead to a synergy to promote the photoinduced charge transfer resonance between analytes and substrate by offering efficient routes of charge escaping and transferring as well as strong vibronic coupling, thus realizing high SERS activity on amorphous nonstoichiometric WO3−x films.

Plasmon-free surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates have attracted tremendous attention for their abundant sources, excellent chemical stability, superior biocompatibility, good signal uniformity, and unique selectivity to target molecules.Recently, researchers have made great progress in fabricating novel plasmon-free SERS substrates and exploring new enhancement strategies to improve the sensitivity of plasmon-free SERS substrates. This review summarizes the recent developments of plasmon-free SERS substrates and specially focuses on the enhancement mechanisms and the enhancement strategies. Furthermore, the promising applications of plasmon-free SERS substrates in biomedical diagnosis, metal ions and organic pollutants sensing, chemical and biochemical reactions monitoring, and photoelectric characterization are introduced. Finally, the current challenges and future research opportunities in plasmon-free SERS substrates are briefly discussed.

We mimic unique honeycomb structure as well as its functions of storing honey and pollen to assemble Au nanoparticle pattern on honeycomb-like Al nanobowl array by utilizing solid state dewetting process. Patterned Au nanoarrays of ‘one particle per bowl’ with tunable plasmonic bands ranging from the visible to the near-infrared region are fabricated by finely selecting the initial thickness of Au film, the geometry of Al nanobowl array and the thermal treatment parameters. This work presents a powerful approach to assemble Au nanoparticles into high density nanoarrays with superior spatial resolution, offering highly concentrated electromagnetic fields for plasmonic sensor applications.

Exploring the influence of interlayer interaction on SERS performance by using 2D PtSe2 and ReS2 with different numbers of layers as the research objects.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is recognized as one of the most sensitive spectroscopic tools for chemical and biological detections. Hotspots engineering has expedited promotion of SERS performance over the past few decades. Recently, molecular enrichment has proven to be another effective approach to improve the SERS performance. In this work, we propose a concept of “motile hotspots” to realize ultrasensitive SERS sensing by combining hotspots engineering and active molecular enrichment. High-density plasmonic nanostructure-supporting hotspots are assembled on the tubular outer wall of micromotors via nanoimprint and rolling origami techniques. The dense hotspots carried on these hierarchically structured micromotors (HSMs) can be magnet-powered to actively enrich molecules in fluid. The active enrichment manner of HSMs is revealed to be effective in accelerating the process of molecular adsorption. Consequently, SERS intensity increases significantly because of more molecules being adjacent to the hotspots after active molecular enrichment. This “motile hotspots” concept provides a synergistical approach in constructing a SERS platform with high performance. Moreover, the newly developed construction method of HSMs manifests the possibility of tailoring tubular length and diameter as well as surface patterns on the outer wall of HSMs, demonstrating good flexibility in constructing customized micromotors for various applications.