Single nanoparticle-based heteronanojunction as a plasmon ruler for measuring dielectric thin films

Nondestructive, noninvasive and accurate measurement of thin film thicknesses on dielectric substrates is challenging. In this work a ruler for measuring thin film thicknesses utilizes the heteronanojunction construct formed between a plasmonic nanoparticle and a high refractive index nonplasmonic substrate. The high near-field sensitivity in the nanojunction renders it suitable for measuring the thickness of intervening dielectric thin films. We demonstrate this by controlling the thickness of dielectric spacer layers created by overgrowing SiO₂ thin films on commercially available silicon substrates. While Rayleigh (using dark-field) scattering measurements show that the spectral response is well correlated to the thickness of SiO₂ spacer layers the distance-dependence is much steeper with surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). Good agreement between 3D simulations and experimental results confirm the plasmon ruler construct's sensitivity to the dielectric thin film spacing. Thus, we postulate that this single nanoparticle based heteronanojunction configuration can serve as a convenient and simple ruler in metrology of thin films as well as a platform for SERS-based detection even in cases where plasmonically active films are not a suitable substrate.