Many different techniques have been reported to fabricate functional metallic plasmonic substrates for chemical and biological sensor applications. Colloidal suspensions of metal nanoparticles of various shapes and sizes are most commonly used due to their preparation simplicity and reports of Raman scattering spectra from single molecules; the large scattering enhancements were later attributed to single molecules located in nanogaps between nanoparticle dimers. However, nanoparticle assemblies typically have poor enhancement reproducibility, which is attributed to their random composition and lack of precise dimensional control, dimer separation distance, and excitation polarization alignment. We are developing new top-down fabrication techniques based on nanostructured templates made from materials that can be micromachined with high precision, such as silicon, silicon-dioxide, and silicon-nitride. The nanostructured templates are subsequently coated with plasmonically active materials, such as silver or gold; hence we do not pattern and etch the metal layer.