This paper presents an experimental study on the manufacturing process of surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates obtained by the thermal structuring of gold films. Three such samples were fabricated by depositing gold on glass substrates, inside an ultra high vacuum (UHV) installation. The UHV facility also included a sample heater, an argon ion gun and an atomic force microscope (AFM). As the efficiency of a SERS substrate is optimum for a particular value of the horizontal granularity of the metallic film, which is linked to the laser wavelength used to probe the sample, we aimed to gradually increase the horizontal granularity, through several stages of thermally induced structuring, so to get as close as possible to this optimum value. The horizontal granularity of the gold film was expressed in terms of the surface correlation length, calculated for a 20% reference threshold of the surface correlation function, which we denoted by SCL20. This parameter can be measured from the AFM images of the gold films, which are taken at various stages in the fabrication process, and it gives meaningful values for the horizontal granularity, irrespective of the fact that the thermally induced pattern exhibits solid-state dewetting or not. Therefore, this parameter offers a useful unique measuring criterion for the horizontal granularity, as it can be applied to both continuous and discontinuous films. After fabrication, the SERS performance of each sample was measured and compared with that of a commercial sample, which had a paper based active region impregnated with gold nanoparticles.

本文介绍了通过金膜的热结构化获得的表面增强拉曼散射（SERS）衬底制造工艺的实验研究。通过在超高真空（UHV）装置内的玻璃基板上沉积金来制作三个此类样品。UHV设施还包括样品加热器，氩离子枪和原子力显微镜（AFM）。由于SERS基板的效率对于金属膜的水平粒度的特定值来说是最佳的，该值与用于探测样品的激光波长有关，因此我们旨在通过热诱导的几个阶段逐步提高水平粒度结构，以便尽可能接近此最佳值。金膜的水平粒度表示为表面相关长度，该长度是针对表面相关函数的20％参考阈值计算的，我们用SCL20表示。该参数可以从金膜的AFM图像中测量，该图像是在制造过程的各个阶段拍摄的，并且它为水平粒度提供了有意义的值，而与热致图案显示出固态去湿或不。因此，此参数为水平粒度提供了有用的独特测量标准，因为它可以应用于连续和不连续的薄膜。制作后，测量每个样品的SERS性能，并将其与商业样品进行比较，该商业样品具有浸有金纳米颗粒的纸基活性区域。