Two-Step Fabrication of Metal-Coated Silicon Nanopillars with Large Raman Enhancement

We present a two-step method for producing relatively large areas of substrate that greatly enhance the Raman effect. As being easy to fabricate while having a large Raman enhancement, these novel substrates are believed to be able to make SERS more applicable for both liquid and gas phase SERS based chemical and biochemical sensors. Under the framework of the Xsense project at the Technical University of Denmark [1] these SERS substrates will be included in handheld explosives detectors with applications in homeland security and landmine clearance.