Quantifying the ultimate limit of plasmonic near-field enhancement.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39394215.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-53210-8 and PMC identifier 11470092.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC-ND.
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Abstract
Quantitatively probing the ultimate limit of near-field enhancement around plasmonic nanostructures remains elusive, despite more than five decades since the discovery of surface-enhanced Raman scattering. Theoretical calculations have predicted an ultimate near-field enhancement exceeding 1000 using the best plasmonic material silver, but experimental estimations disperse by orders of magnitude. Here, we design a high-quality silver plasmonic nanocavity with atomic precision and precisely quantify the upper limit of near-field enhancement in ~1 nm junctions. A hot-spot averaged Raman enhancement of 4.27 × 10<sup>10</sup> is recorded with a small fluctuation, corresponding to an averaged electric field enhancement larger than 1000 times. This result quantitatively delineates the ultimate limit of plasmonic field enhancement around plasmonic nanostructures, establishing a foundation for diverse plasmon-enhanced processes and strong light-matter interactions at the atomic scale.