A robust, flexible adhesive tape-based SERS substrate fabricated by polymer etching and subsequent Au coating on the exposed SiO2 nanosphere monolayer

Abstract

With the rapid development of trace detection, high-performance flexible surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates have enjoyed steady growth of interest. In this paper, a facile method to improve the robustness of the flexible SERS substrate via the synergistic effect of rigid SiO2 nanospheres and flexible tape was demonstrated for the first time. In detail, the spin-coated SiO2 nanosphere monolayer was transferred from the host silicon wafer into the tape by peeling-off process, followed by O2 plasma etching of tape polymer to expose the nanospheres, and final Au coating to form plentiful SERS “hotspots”. The as-prepared SERS sample shows a detection limit of Rhodamine 6G (R6G) down to 10−10 M and can afford a 500 times bending-releasing cyclic test. Our research provides a promising strategy to prepare robust SERS substrates which exhibit good potential in practical molecule detection on curved surfaces.