Monolithic Integrations of Slanted Silicon Nanostructures on 3D Microstructures and Their Application to Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

Abstract: We demonstrated fabrication of black silicon with slanted nanocone array on both planar and 3D micro and meso scale structures produced by a high-throughput lithography-free oblique-angle plasma etching process. Nanocones with gradual change in height were created on the same piece of silicon. The relation between the slanted angle of nanocones and incident angle of directional plasma is experimentally investigated. In order to demonstrate the monolithic integration of nanostructures on micro and meso scale non-planar surfaces, nanocone forest is fabricated on non-planar silicon surfaces in various morphologies such as silicon atomic force microscopy (AFM) tips and pyramidal pits. By integrating nanocones on inverse silicon micro-pyramid array devices, we further improved the surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) enhancement property of this optimized commercial SERS substrate by several folds even when using 66% less noble metal coating. We investigated the length gradient dependence and asymmetric properties of SERS effects for slanted nanocone with polarized excitation. This versatile and angle-controllable nanocone fabrication and monolithic 3D nano-micro-meso integration method provides new dimensions for production and optimization of SERS and other nanophotonic sensors.