This communication refers to the design of a novel, highly efficient and uniform substrate for SERS. The method takes advantage of the block copolymer micelle nanolithography concept for making well-ordered and uniformly spaced gold nanodot assemblies, which are subsequently used as seed substrates for chemical growth, thereby yielding Ag nanoparticte arrays containing a high density of hot spots, which render these concentrated island films ideal substrates for reproducible surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) detection. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.