SERS-active substrates based on graphene oxide or reduced graphene oxide and silver nanoparticles

Abstract

The development of challenging approaches in the field of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) active platforms is an objective pursued by many studies due to the high potential of SERS in terms of specificity and ultrasensitivity of the method. The SERS substrates based on graphene, graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) have attracted lately much attention because of their distinct physical properties. In order to achieve highly effective SERS substrates we used solid GO and rGO films deposited on a polymeric substrate, on which colloidal Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been dropped. The SERS efficiency of the prepared substrates was tested by using rhodamine 6G (R6G) as test molecule. The recorded SERS spectra demonstrated that GO/AgNPs substrates provided a greater enhancement of the Raman signal as compared to the rGO/AgNPs ones, but both can be used as highly efficient and stable SERS substrates, for a wide range of applications such as biomedicine, food inspection, energy, environmental monitoring and so on.