The fabrication of gold colloidal nanoantennas by a full wet surface assembly technique

Atomic force microscopy based tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (AFM-TERS) has been widely used in various structural analyses because of its capability of acquiring chemical information with nanoscale spatial resolution in various experimental conditions. However, as a key factor to directly enhance the AFM-TERS effect, the fabrication of an AFM-TERS probe was limited by either expensive equipment or complex process. Here, we attach chemosynthetic nanoparticles to a commercial AFM probe by a full wet surface assembly technique to prepare colloidal nanoantennas with tunable enhancement. Especially, the technique is convenient, cost-effective and can be performed for all of the TERS community.