Surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activity studies of Si, Fe, Ti, Al and Ag films' prepared by magnetron sputtering

By magnetron sputtering we can make different kinds of metal or semiconductor films to study SERS-active substrate surface. Changing the conditions of magnetron sputtering can give the films of different surface shapes that we want. In this paper we gained the transitional metal films of Fe and Ti, the general metal films of Ag and Al, and the semiconductor films of Si. Then we use the atomic force microscope (AFM) to get the top view pictures of the films. And we also study the SERS mechanism of different films by dropping p-hydroxybenzoic acid (PHBA) solution on them. By this method we find a kind of nearly unearthly SERS-active substrate. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.