Abstract
This paper reports the employment of metal over etched polystyrene nanospheres by first oxidizing polystyrene beads (PSBs) to form carboxyl groups as masks and tailoring bead diameter. Then argon plasma bombarded on the PSBs with localized carboxyl groups protection on the surface to further generate high-aspect-ratio (HAR) nanostructures, as well as slightly shrinking the diameter of polystyrene beads, for tuning the surface roughness degree and enhancing surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) signal. For the application, the gold coated corrugated PSBs can be a fluorescent cargo for the particle tracking and Raman sensing in live cells.