Vertically aligned silver nanorods were good substrates for surface-enhanced Raman scattering. It was found that by organizing these nanorods into hexagonal lattice with a pattern size of 400 nm, the Raman sensitivity can be further enhanced by several times. It was also found that this enhancement was dependent on the separation distance of the lattice patterns, which reached a maximum at a separation distance of 200 nm. This study provides an alternative idea to further enhance the Raman scattering using nanostructures. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.