Understanding the Plasmonics of Nanostructured Atomic Force Microscopy   Tips
  Structured metallic tips are increasingly important for optical spectroscopies such as tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS), with plasmonic resonances frequently cited as a mechanism for electric field enhancement. We probe the local optical response of sharp and spherical-tipped atomic force microscopy (AFM) tips using a scanning hyperspectral imaging technique to identify plasmonic behaviour. Localised surface plasmon resonances which radiatively couple with far-field light are found only for spherical AFM tips, with little response for sharp AFM tips, in agreement with numerical simulations of the near-field response. The precise tip geometry is thus crucial for plasmon-enhanced spectroscopies, and the typical sharp cones are not preferred. 
Alan Sanders, Richard W. Bowman, Liwu Zhang, Vladimir Turek, Daniel O.   Sigle, Anna Lombardi, Lee Weller, Jeremy J. Baumberg
physics.optics