The Raman spectrum of graphene oxide decorated with different metal nanoparticles

Abstract

It is interesting to investigate the nature of interactions between metal nanoparticles and graphene oxide (GO), which is the fundamental of the potential applications of the GO. Resonant Raman technique provides a useful way to explore the influence of metal nanoparticles on the electronic structure of GO. For this purpose, GO has been decorated by nanoparticles of metals such as silver (Ag), gold (Au) and palladium (Pd), and then measured using micro Raman spectroscopy. Several different laser lines are used in the experiment. There is a red shift in the D-band as well as the G-band in addition to the changes in the Raman bandwidth. Comparing the changes in the Raman spectra of the GO caused by the different metal nanoparticles, we find that the effect of Ag on GO is large. On the other hand, Au nanoparticles cause small changes. Such difference is related to the intrinsic properties of the metal nanoparticles which have different ionization energies. When the laser wavelength increases, the ratio between the intensities of the D-band and G-band (I D /I G ) increases. And the Raman enhancement effects of Pd, Ag, and Au nanoparticles are different since they have different surface plasmon resonance frequencies.