Electrochemically induced flowerlike gold nanoarchitectures and their strong surface-enhanced Raman scattering effect

The authors report the fabrication of gold flowerlike nanoarchitectures (FNs) on indium tin oxide coated glass substrate using a low-cost electrochemical strategy at a proper current density and polyvinylpyrrolidone concentration in electrolyte. The FNs are grown and built with the blocks of two-dimensional flakelike nanostructures. Importantly, such FNs show strong surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) effect associated with their geometries, which is much stronger than that from other particle films. The minimum concentration of detectable rhodamine 6G molecules can be down to 10(-12)M. These FNs with strong SERS effect could be used in chemical analysis, biosensors, and nanodevices with molecule-level detection. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.