Near-field artifacts in tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

We demonstrate that near-field optical interactions encountered in tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) imaging of a nano-object can result in enhanced light scattering that is not caused by localized plasmonic excitations. The true TERS signal is shown to scale with the tip size; however, other tip-related artifacts can lead to spatial variations in Rayleigh and Raman scattering below the diffraction limit with decay lengths up to 250 nm. Such artifacts have been attributed to multiple scattering events involving the tip shaft; experimental considerations to alleviate these near-field artifacts and anomalous TERS signals are also discussed.

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