Toward Understanding the Influence of Intermolecular Interactions and Molecular Orientation on the Chemical Enhancement of SERS

Implementation of SEAS as an analytical technique is limited because the factors that govern the enhancement of individual vibrational modes are not well understood. Although the chemical effect only accounts for up to two orders of magnitude enhancement, it can still have a significant impact on the consistency of chemical spectral signatures. We report on a combined theoretical and experimental study on the benzenethiol on silver and 4-mercaptophenol on silver systems. The primary and unique finding was that for the benzenethiol on silver system the inclusion of interaction between multiple benzenethiol analyte molecules was essential to account for the relative enhancements observed experimentally. An examination of the molecular orbitals showed sharing of electron density across the entire model of multiple benzenethiol molecules mediated by the metal atoms. The addition of multiple 4-mercaptophenol molecules to the theoretical model had little effect on the predicted spectra, and we attribute this to the fact that a much larger model is necessary to replicate the networks of hydrogen bonds. Molecular orientation was also found to affect the predicted spectra, and it was found that an upright position improved agreement between theoretical and experimental spectra. An analysis of the vibrational frequency shifts between the normal Raman spectrum of the neat compound and the SERS spectrum also suggests that both benzenethiol and 4-mercaptophenol are in an upright position.