Arrays of aligned, single crystalline silver nanorods for trace amount detection

Arrays of vertically aligned, single crystalline silver nanorods were deposited on silicon substrates via the glancing angle deposition technique using an e-beam system. The single crystalline Ag nanorods are several tens of nanometres in diameter and several hundred nanometres in length and could serve as excellent surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrates. Using these nanorods, Rhodamine 6G molecules can be detected to a concentration limit of 10−14 mol L−1, showing the possibility of applications in the trace amount detection of organics.