Quantitative evaluation of electromagnetic enhancement in surface-enhanced resonance Raman scattering from plasmonic properties and morphologies of individual Ag nanostructures

The electromagnetic (EM) enhancement in surface-enhanced resonance Raman scattering (SERRS) is quantitatively evaluated for rhodamine molecules adsorbed on Ag nanostructures. Polarization dependence of the plasma resonance (plasmon resonance) and the SERRS spectra from single isolated Ag nanostructures was evaluated to determine one-to-one relationship between optical anisotropy of plasma resonance, that of SERRS, and the morphology of the nanostructures. Experimental observations were compared with finite-difference time-domain calculations of the EM field induced by plasma resonance using individual morphology of the nanostructures. The experimental enhancement factor of SERRS 10^9 was consistent with that of the calculations within a factor of 2 for three excitation wavelengths. We conclusively fortify the indispensible importance of SERRS-EM theory with our results to design metal nanostructures generating strong EM enhancement.