Gold nanoparticle arrays generated by modified Electron Beam Lithography and their applicability to plasmonic sensors

Gold nanoparticle arrays manufactured by a modified Electron Beam Lithography method are presented. The method allows to write highly ordered dot structures with a dot size of 50 nm and total area of 4 x 4 mm in a reasonable time.

The arrays are evaluated with respect to the desired application as plasmonic sensors. Therefore the uniformity of the particles created by the modified method is investigated. Using far-field optical spectroscopy the sprectral position and FWHM of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of the arrays are determined. Influences of plasmonic coupling effects on the SPR properties of closely packed array structures are elucidated by comparing the results to single particle SPR spectra. The experiments are conducted on arrays with different interparticle spacings.