Hot spots in silver nano-dendrites fabricated by self-selective electroless plating

Unique silver dendritic nanostructures, with stems, branches, and leaves, were synthesized with self-organization via a self-selective electroless plating method. The finite difference time domain calculations indicate that the dendrite-like model pattern may demonstrate a high quality surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) property owing to the ¿metal/nanoclusters/metal¿ hot geometries. Further calculations provide useful guidelines for the synthesis of hot dendritic geometries and further increasing the enhancement factor of the SERS.