Modular microreactor with integrated reflection element for online reaction monitoring using infrared spectroscopy.

We report on the fabrication of an internal reflection element (IRE) combined with a modular polymer microfluidic chip that can be used for attenuated total reflection (ATR) infrared spectroscopy. The IRE is fabricated from a silicon wafer. Two different polymers are used for the fabrication of the two types of modular microfluidic chips, namely polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and cyclic olefin copolymer (COC).

Spectroelectrochemistry, the future of visualizing electrode processes by hyphenating electrochemistry with spectroscopic techniques.

The combination of electrochemistry and spectroscopy, known as spectroelectrochemistry (SEC), is an already established approach. By combining these two techniques, the relevance of the data obtained is greater than what it would be when using them independently. A number of review papers have been published on this subject, mostly written for experts in the field and focused on recent advances.

Wafer-scale fabrication of high-quality tunable gold nanogap arrays for surface-enhanced Raman scattering.

We report a robust and high-yield fabrication method for wafer-scale patterning of high-quality arrays of dense gold nanogaps, combining displacement Talbot lithography based shrink-etching with dry etching, wet etching, and thin film deposition techniques. By using the self-sharpening of <111>-oriented silicon crystal planes during the wet etching process, silicon structures with extremely smooth nanogaps are obtained. Subsequent conformal deposition of a silicon nitride layer and a gold layer results in dense arrays of narrow gold nanogaps.