Poly(ionic liquid)-assisted one-pot synthesis of Au hyperbranched architectures for enhanced SERS performances

Abstract

In this work, high-quality hyperbranched Au dendrites were synthesized by a fast, straightforward, scalable and cost-effective one-pot strategy with the assistance of poly(ionic liquid) poly(1-vinyl-3-ethylimidazolium bromide) (PVEIB) as the stabilizing agent and structure director. PVEIB plays the key role in the formation of the dendritic architectures that are composed of a trunk, secondary and tertiary branches. The as-prepared Au nanodendrites exhibited surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) performance for the detection of 4-mercaptobenzoic acid (4-MBA) with a linear range of 0.5–10μM and a detection limit of 0.02μM, owing to their rough surfaces and parallel branches. Taking advantage of its facile fabrication and highly SERS signals, Au NDs were further explored for the assay of other molecules (e.g., 4-nitrobenzenethiol, 4-aminothiophenol, 1,4-benzenedithiol, and 4-mercaptophenyl boronic acid) with improved performances.