A novel surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrate: Diamond nanopit infilled with gold nanoparticle

• A hybrid structure of diamond pits containing gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) as Au-NP/diamond-pit has been fabricated.
• The Au-NP/diamond-pit structure can be used as an efficient surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate.
• The diamond pit could gain a strong light illumination for enhancing the strength of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) from Au NP.
• The LSPR-related SERS activity obtained from the Au-NP/diamond-pit has larger enhancement factor than that from the isolated Au NP.

In this study, a hybrid structure of inversely truncated pyramid-shaped diamond nanopits infilled with gold nanoparticle (Au NP) has been fabricated from a Au film coated single crystal diamond by oxygen plasma etching. Surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) performances based on the Au-NP/diamond-pit, using 4-Mercaptopyridine as the probe molecule, show that the hybrid structure could realize a larger SERS enhancement factor compared to the conventional isolated Au NPs. This is attributed to the increased concentration of incident light field on the Au NPs due to the special geometric feature, and the coupling of localized surface plasmon resonance from Au NPs. Taking into account the unique properties of diamond, the diamond-related hybrid structure could be used as a kind of high performance SERS substrate.

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