Probing the limits of plasmonic enhancement using a two-dimensional atomic crystal probe

A research group led by Shunping Zhang and Hongxing Xu at Wuhan University, China, has developed a quantitative SERS technique to probe the maximum plasmonic fields before effects such as electron tunneling become dominant. The researchers turned to molybdenum disulfide (MoS2)-a graphene-like, two-dimensional atomic layer to tune the distance between a gold nanoparticle and a smooth gold film.