Plasmonic properties and optimization of ultraviolet surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

The investigation of plasmonic properties and optimization of ultraviolet surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (UV-SERS) are essential for improving the detective capability in terms of high sensitivity and application range. In this work, the finite element method (FEM) are performed for the UV-SERS using Al nanoparticles (NPs) dimer. We theoretically explore the influence of incident angle, radius and separation of NPs dimer on the electric enhancement. The simulation results show that the optimized radius and separation of NPs dimer are 30 nm and 1 nm for UV-SERS measurements under the normal incidence condition, where the strongest Raman enhancement factor reach as high as 9 orders with excitation wavelength of 215 nm. Our results may help to find the optimal geometric factor for further improving the performance of the UV-SERS system.