Chemosensing on Miniaturized Plasmonic Substrates

Round, small-sized coverslips were coated for the first time with thin layers of indium tin oxide (ITO, 10–40 nm)/gold (Au, 2–8 nm) and annealed at 550 °C for several hours. The resulting nanostructures on miniaturized substrates were further optimized for the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) chemosensing of a model molecule—1,2-bis-(4-ppyridyl)-ethene (BPE)—with a detection limit of 10−12 M BPE in an aqueous solution. All the fabrication steps of plasmonic-annealed platforms were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM).