Silver nanorods used to promote SERS as a quantitative analytical tool

We have fabricated silver nanorod arrays by electrodepositing the nanorods evenly in the shallow pores of porous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates. The diameter and length were 28 and 44 nm, respectively. The maxima of the transverse and longitudinal modes of the surface plasmon were near 417 and 511 nm, respectively. A good surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectrum was observed by excitation with the 514.5-nm laser line. The SERS intensity increased almost linearly upon malachite green isothiocyanate adsorption on the tips of the silver nanorods as the concentration of the mother solutions increased. Our results show that silver nanorods fabricated on AAO templates could be used as an SERS substrate for quantitative analyses. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.