Journal
NANOMATERIALS
Volume 11, Issue 7, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/nano11071760
Keywords
silicon nanowires; metal-assisted chemical etching; surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy; Ag dendrites; Ag aggregates
Categories
Funding
- European Regional Development Fund of the European Union
- Greek national funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation [T2EDK-03746]
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In this study, highly sensitive substrates for Surface-Enhanced-Raman-Scattering (SERS) spectroscopy were developed by decorating silicon nanowires (SiNWs) with silver nanostructures using single-step Metal Assisted Chemical Etching (MACE). The substrates showed considerably lower limit of detection (LOD) and better uniformity in SERS activity when decorated with silver aggregates compared to dendritic structures. Enhancement factors ranging from 10^5 to 10^10 were calculated, demonstrating very high SERS sensitivities for analytical applications.
In this study, we developed highly sensitive substrates for Surface-Enhanced-Raman-Scattering (SERS) spectroscopy, consisting of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) decorated by silver nanostructures using single-step Metal Assisted Chemical Etching (MACE). One-step MACE was performed on p-type Si substrates by immersion in AgNO3/HF aqueous solutions resulting in the formation of SiNWs decorated by either silver aggregates or dendrites. Specifically, dendrites were formed during SiNWs' growth in the etchant solution, whereas aggregates were grown after the removal of the dendrites from the SiNWs in HNO3 aqueous solution and subsequent re-immersion of the specimens in a AgNO3/HF aqueous solution by adjusting the growth time to achieve the desired density of silver nanostructures. The dendrites had much larger height than the aggregates. R6G was used as analyte to test the SERS activity of the substrates prepared by the two fabrication processes. The silver aggregates showed a considerably lower limit of detection (LOD) for SERS down to a R6G concentration of 10(-13) M, and much better uniformity in terms of detection in comparison with the silver dendritic structures. Enhancement factors in the range 10(5)-10(10) were calculated, demonstrating very high SERS sensitivities for analytic applications.
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