Towards the development of a glass optical fibre probe for SERS applications

Ion exchange in silver nitrate is a well-established technique for modifying the chemical-physical properties of the glass materials and is widely used in the fields of Integrated Optics (IO) and, more recently, in Plasmonics due to the possibility to induce the formation of silver nanoparticles in the glass matrix by an ad-hoc thermal post-process. Here we report the application of this technology for the realization of SERS planar substrates in commercial soda-lime glasses. This study is preparatory for the development of a glass optical fibre probe, treated by ion-exchange, for SERS applications. The main results obtained on planar samples as well as the preliminary ones on the glass optical fibre will be presented.