Abstract
There is great interest in developing complex, 3D plasmonic materials with unusual structural properties. This can be achieved via template-assisted approaches exploiting scaffold elements to engineer unique plasmonic substrates, which would be otherwise impossible to synthesize. Herein, we present a novel, simple, and low-cost template-assisted method for producing interconnected 3-D silver microstructures by utilizing vermiculite, a well-known silicate, as both in-situ reductant and template for silver growth. The silicate network of the vermiculite can be easily removed by dissolution with hydrofluoric acid, which, simultaneously, leads to the formation of a magnesium fluoride skeleton supporting a plasmonically active silver film. Optical, morphological, and chemical properties of the materials were extensively investigated, revealing, for example, that hybrid silver microstructures can be exploited as valuable SERS substrates over a broad spectral range of excitation wavelengths.