Hodgson P A, Wang Y, Mohammad A Awez, Kruse P
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. W., Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada.
Rev Sci Instrum. 2013 Feb;84(2):026109. doi: 10.1063/1.4793243.
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.
