Efficient surface enhanced Raman scattering substrates based on complex gold nanostructures formed by annealing sputtered gold thin films

Surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has attracted great attention of scientists in the last few decades due to its wide range of applications, especially in detecting chemical compounds even at single molecular level. In this research, we combine sputtering and post annealing method to prepare gold nanoparticles with uniform distribution on cover glass substrates, which work as efficient SERS substrates. This work studies the effect of gold thickness on the formation of nanoparticles during annealing process. The effect of size, inter-distance and morphology of gold NPs on plasmon properties was studied by scanning electron microscope and absorption spectroscopy. The enhancement capability of different morphologies was also verified by using Finite Different Time Domain (FDTD) technique. The as-prepared gold nanoparticles arrays are efficient surface enhanced Raman scattering substrates as demonstrated by the ability to detect methylene blue at concentration as low as 10-10 M. The facile, cost-effective fabrication process is convenient to scale up for mass production of high sensitivity surface enhanced Raman substrates.

Automated summary

The research combined sputtering and post annealing methods to prepare gold nanoparticles with uniform distribution on cover glass substrates, and studied the effect of gold thickness on the formation of nanoparticles. The study also analyzed the impact of size, inter-distance, and morphology of gold NPs on plasmon properties using SEM and absorption spectroscopy. Different morphologies' enhancement capabilities were verified using FDTD technique, demonstrating the efficient performance of the prepared gold nanoparticles arrays as SERS substrates.