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Measuring the surface-enhanced Raman scattering enhancement factors of hot spots formed between an individual Ag nanowire and a single Ag nanocube

This paper describes a systematic study of the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activity of hot spots formed between a Ag nanowire and a Ag nanocube with sharp corners. We investigated two distinct dimer structures: (i) a nanocube having one side face nearly touching the side face of a nanowire, and (ii) a nanocube having one edge nearly touching the side face of a nanowire. The field enhancements for the dimers displayed a strong dependence on laser polarization, and the strongest SERS intensities were observed for polarization along the hot-spot axis. Moreover, the detected SERS intensities were dependent on the hot-spot structure, i.e., the relative orientation of the Ag nanocube with respect to the nanowire’s side face. When the dimer had a face-to-face configuration, the enhancement factor EFdimer was 1.4 × 107. This corresponds to 22-fold and 24-fold increases compared to those for individual Ag nanowires and nanocubes, respectively. Conversely, when the dimer had an edge-to-face configuration, EFdimer was 4.3 × 106. These results demonstrated that the number of probe molecules adsorbed at the hot spot played an important role in determining the detected SERS intensities. EFdimer was maximized when the dimer configuration allowed for a larger number of probe molecules to be trapped within the hot-spot region.