Suchergebnisse

Gold nanostars display strong electromagnetic field enhancement at their tips, and tip plasmon resonances can be tuned within the visible and near-infrared, which has been applied toward plasmonic molecular sensing. However, the sensitivity can be further increased by linking gold nanostars to other plasmonic nanoparticles and thereby inducing the creation of hot spots. We report the controlled formation of core–satellite assemblies comprising a central gold nanostar with gold spheres adsorbed to the tips via Raman active molecular linkers. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) was recorded at the level of single gold nanostar–satellite clusters, and the experimental results were compared with detailed electromagnetic simulations. ; L.M.L.-M. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC Advanced Grant #267867 PLASMAQUO) and the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MAT2013-46101-R). D.M.S., J.M.T., and F.O. acknowledge funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Spanish Government, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (TEC2011-28784-C02-01, TEC2011-28784-C02-02, CONSOLIDER INGENIO 2010 CSD2008-00068, project TACTICA), from the ERDF and the Galician Regional Government under agreement for funding the atlantic Research Center for Information and Communication Technologies (atlantTIC), and from the ERDF and the Extremadura Regional Government (IB13185).