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Highly Ordered Ag/Cu Hybrid Nanostructure Arrays for Ultrasensitive Surface‐Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy
Author(s) -
Chen Kun,
Zhang Xinyi,
Zhang Yongliang,
Lei Dang Yuan,
Li Haitao,
Williams Timothy,
MacFarlane Douglas R.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
advanced materials interfaces
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.671
H-Index - 65
ISSN - 2196-7350
DOI - 10.1002/admi.201600115
Subject(s) - nanorod , materials science , nanostructure , surface enhanced raman spectroscopy , raman spectroscopy , fabrication , nanotechnology , sputtering , nanoparticle , spectroscopy , optoelectronics , raman scattering , thin film , optics , medicine , physics , alternative medicine , pathology , quantum mechanics
Despite significant progress recently made in this field, the practical application of surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is frequently limited by the lack of highly sensitive, reproducible, and cost‐effective substrates. The fabrication of SERS substrates with a consistently high density of hot‐spots is a key step to address this issue. Here, a simple approach is reported for the fabrication of Ag/Cu hybrid nanostructure arrays as highly sensitive and cost‐effective substrates for SERS application. By effectively tuning the gap size between neighboring nanorods to sub‐10 nm and increasing the packing density of nanorods, ordered Cu nanorod arrays can be used as cheap and effective SERS substrates in their own right. After sputtering a very thin layer of Ag nanoparticles on the surface of the Cu nanorods to get sub‐5 nm gaps, further field enhancement is enabled. A cascaded field enhancement has been evidenced by the electromagnetic simulations. The Ag/Cu hybrid nanostructure arrays exhibit a detection limit down to 10 −15 m for nonresonant molecules such as benzenethiol.