Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering of Hydrogen Plasma-Treated Few-Layer MoTe2 Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 91963130, 11704068, 61927808, and 61705106), the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2019YFA0308000), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant Nos. 2242021k10009, 2242021R20037, and 2242021R20035), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2018M632197).

Abstract

Two-dimensional surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates have drawn intense attention due to their excellent spectral reproducibility, high uniformity and perfect anti-interference ability. However, the inferior detection sensitivity and low enhancement have limited the practical application of two-dimensional SERS substrates. To address this issue, we propose that the interaction between the MoTe2 substrate and the analyte rhodamine 6G molecules could be remarkably enhanced by the introduced p-doping effect and lattice distortion of MoTe2 via hydrogen plasma treatment. After the treatment, the SERS is greatly improved, the enhancement factor of probe molecules reaches 1.83 × 106 as well as the limit of detection concentration reaches 10−13 M. This method is anticipated to afford new enhancement probability for other 2D materials, even non-metal oxide semiconductor SERS substrates.