SERS-applicable silver nanoisland film grown under protective coating

We have used recently developed out-diffusion technique of growing silver nanoisland films on glass surface to grow silver nanoislands under TiO2 layer deposited on the glass. After covering the surface of silver ion-exchanged glasses with TiO2 film using atomic layer deposition technique and subsequent thermal processing of the samples in hydrogen their optical absorption spectra demonstrate the absorption peak corresponding to surface plasmon resonance in grown silver nanoislands. The spectral position of the peak is shifted relatively to the peak observed in the spectra of the nanoisland film grown on the surface of ion exchanged and annealed glass samples without dielectric cover. The applicability of the silver nanoislands grown under several nm thick protective TiO2 coating in surface-enhanced Raman scattering spectroscopy is demonstrated.