Abstract
Engineering of efficient plasmonic hotspots has been receiving great attention to enhance the sensitivity of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). In the present study, we propose a highly sensitive SERS platform based on Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) on Au island film (AuIF) with a spacer layer of 1,4-benzenedimethanethiol (BDMT). The three-dimensional (3D) hotspot matrix has been rationally designed based on the idea of employing 3D hotspots with a vertical nanogap between AuIF and AuNPs after generating large area two-dimensional hotspots of AuIF. AuNPs@BDMT@AuIF are fabricated by functionalizing BDMT on AuIF and then immobilizing AuNPs. The SERS performance is investigated with Rhodamine 6G as a probe molecule and the determined enhancement factor is 1.3 × 105. The AuNPs@BDMT@AuIF are then employed to detect thiram, which is used as a fungicide, with a detection limit of 13 nM. Our proposed platform thus shows significant potential for use in highly sensitive SERS sensors.
Highlights
Engineering of efficient plasmonic hotspots has been receiving great attention to enhance the sensitivity of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)
The absorption peak denotes the photon absorption due to the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of the Au nanoparticles (AuNPs), and the red-shift is observed as a successive particle growth, which is consistent with Mie t heory[33]
We demonstrated the rationally designed AuNPs@BDMT@Au island film (AuIF) SERS platform based on the idea of employing 3D hotspots with a vertical nanogap between the AuIF and the AuNPs after generating 2D hotspots in large area AuIF
Summary
Engineering of efficient plasmonic hotspots has been receiving great attention to enhance the sensitivity of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). We propose a highly sensitive SERS platform based on Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) on Au island film (AuIF) with a spacer layer of 1,4-benzenedimethanethiol (BDMT). Various fabrication techniques have been proposed for the development of 3D SERS platforms, including top-down lithographic approaches and bottom-up self-assembly m ethods[6,8,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20]. Molecule-based self-assembly has fascinated attention towards highly sensitive SERS platforms due to their cost-effective fabrication and ease of precise control of n anogap[24,25,26,27,28,29]. Linker molecules for the direct assembly of NPs enable the precise control of plasmonic hotspots, enhancing SERS performance
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