Uncovering low-frequency vibrations in surface-enhanced Raman of organic molecules.
Published version
Peer-reviewed
Repository URI
Repository DOI
Type
Change log
Authors
Abstract
Accessing the terahertz (THz) spectral domain through surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is challenging and opens up the study of low-frequency molecular and electronic excitations. Compared to direct THz probing of heterogenous ensembles, the extreme plasmonic confinement of visible light to deep sub-wavelength scales allows the study of hundreds or even single molecules. We show that self-assembled molecular monolayers of a set of simple aromatic thiols confined inside single-particle plasmonic nanocavities can be distinguished by their low-wavenumber spectral peaks below 200 cm-1, after removal of a bosonic inelastic contribution and an exponential background from the spectrum. Developing environment-dependent density-functional-theory simulations of the metal-molecule configuration enables the assignment and classification of their THz vibrations as well as the identification of intermolecular coupling effects and of the influence of the gold surface configuration. Furthermore, we show dramatically narrower THz SERS spectra from individual molecules at picocavities, which indicates the possibility to study intrinsic vibrational properties beyond inhomogeneous broadening, further supporting the key role of local environment.
Description
Keywords
Journal Title
Conference Name
Journal ISSN
2041-1723
Volume Title
Publisher
Publisher DOI
Sponsorship
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) Research Infrastructures (RI) (861950)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/S022953/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L015978/1)
Horizon Europe UKRI Underwrite ERC (EP/Y036379/1)
EPSRC (EP/Y008162/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/R020965/1)
EPSRC (EP/X037770/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L027151/1)