1.
Rev Sci Instrum
; 84(2): 026109, 2013 Feb.
Artigo
em Inglês
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-23464271
RESUMO
Sharp metal tips have many uses, including in scanning probe microscopy. Silver is a particularly interesting metal for plasmonic enhancement, e.g., in tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, however few methods for the production of silver tips have been explored. A simple and reliable one step dc electrochemical method for the production of sharp silver tips in concentrated H2SO4 is presented. The optimal conditions are 10 V cell voltage and 99% sulfuric acid for tip radii below 100 nm. A LabView program was written to control the cut-off of the circuit to within a millisecond to avoid blunting the tips after drop-off.