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Nanoscale chemical mapping using three-dimensional adiabatic compression of surface plasmon polaritons

Nature Nanotechnology volume 5, pages 67–72 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

The fields of plasmonics, Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy have recently undergone considerable development, but independently of one another. By combining these techniques, a range of complementary information could be simultaneously obtained at a single molecule level. Here, we report the design, fabrication and application of a photonic–plasmonic device that is fully compatible with atomic force microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. Our approach relies on the generation and localization of surface plasmon polaritons by means of adiabatic compression through a metallic tapered waveguide to create strongly enhanced Raman excitation in a region just a few nanometres across. The tapered waveguide can also be used as an atomic force microscope tip. Using the device, topographic, chemical and structural information about silicon nanocrystals may be obtained with a spatial resolution of 7 nm.

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Figure 1: Tapered waveguide on an AFM cantilever and experimental apparatus.
Figure 2: Experimental test of SPP generation and propagation along the tapered waveguide.
Figure 3: Theoretical field enhancement in the plasmonic tapered waveguide.
Figure 4: AFM topography of the nanostructured sample.
Figure 5: Wide-scan Raman spectra and three-dimensional map of a silicon nanocrystal/SiOx surface.
Figure 6: High-resolution AFM and Raman mapping.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded under European Project DIPNA FP6-STREP proposal no. 032131, Project SMD FP7-NMP 2800-SMALL-2 proposal no. CP-FP 229375-2, MIUR-PRIN2008 project—Italian Ministry of University and Research, FIRB contract no. RBAP06L4S5, Fondazione Cariplo project 2007-5259, and project POSEIDON under POR Calabria 2006-2008. M.L. and A.B. acknowledge funding from FP6-BINASP-SSA011936 project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), NanoBioScience Laboratory, via Morego 30, Genova, I16163, Italy

    Francesco De Angelis, Gobind Das & Enzo Di Fabrizio

  2. BIONEM Lab, University of Magna Graecia, Campus S. Venuta, Germaneto, viale Europa, Catanzaro, I88100, Italy

    Francesco De Angelis, Patrizio Candeloro, Carlo Liberale & Enzo Di Fabrizio

  3. Department of Physics ‘A. Volta’ and UdR CNISM, University of Pavia, via Bassi 6, Pavia, I27100, Italy

    Maddalena Patrini, Matteo Galli, Ivan Maksymov & Lucio Claudio Andreani

  4. CBM scrl Area Science Park — Basovizza, Trieste, I34012, Italy

    Alpan Bek & Marco Lazzarino

  5. TASC National Laboratory, CNR-INFM, Area Science Park — Basovizza, Trieste, I34012, Italy

    Marco Lazzarino

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  1. Francesco De Angelis
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All authors contributed significantly to the work presented in this paper.

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Correspondence to Enzo Di Fabrizio.

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De Angelis, F., Das, G., Candeloro, P. et al. Nanoscale chemical mapping using three-dimensional adiabatic compression of surface plasmon polaritons. Nature Nanotech 5, 67–72 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2009.348

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