Cost effective nanostructured copper substrates prepared with ultrafast laser pulses for explosives detection using surface enhanced Raman scattering

Abstract

Ultrafast laser pulses induced surface nanostructures were fabricated on a copper (Cu) target through ablation in acetone, dichloromethane, acetonitrile, and chloroform. Surface morphological information accomplished from the field emission scanning electron microscopic data demonstrated the diversities of ablation mechanism in each case. Fabricated Cu substrates were utilized exultantly to investigate the surface plasmon (localized and propagating) mediated enhancements of different analytes using surface enhance Raman scattering (SERS) studies. Multiple utility of these substrates were efficiently demonstrated by collecting the SERS data of Rhodamine 6G molecule and two different secondary explosive molecules such as 5-amino-3-nitro-l,2,4-triazole and trinitrotoluene on different days which were weeks apart. We achieved significant enhancement factors of >105 through an easily adoptable cleaning procedure.