Polystyrene microspheres with ultra-rough surfaces engineered using RIE technique and applied using SERS

Abstract

In this study, we successfully fabricated two ultra-rough surfaces based on polystyrene (PS) microspheres by employing the reactive ion etching (RIE) technique. Elemental analysis confirmed a stable AlF₃ composition of the structures of these surfaces. We proposed the mechanism of the formation of these surfaces and performed SERS-related tests; the prepared substrates exhibited excellent SERS performance.