Quantifying the ultimate limit of plasmonic near-field enhancement.

ABSTRACT: Quantitatively probing the ultimate limit of near-field enhancement around plasmonic nanostructures remains elusive, despite more than five decades since the discovery of surface-enhanced Raman scattering. Theoretical calculations have predicted an ultimate near-field enhancement exceeding 1000 using the best plasmonic material silver, but experimental estimations disperse by orders of magnitude. Here, we design a high-quality silver plasmonic nanocavity with atomic precision and precisely quantify the upper limit of near-field enhancement in ~1 nm junctions. A hot-spot averaged Raman enhancement of 4.27 × 10¹⁰ is recorded with a small fluctuation, corresponding to an averaged electric field enhancement larger than 1000 times. This result quantitatively delineates the ultimate l

SUBMITTER: Lu Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11470092 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature