All-Hot-Spot Bulk Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) Substrates: Attomolar Detection of Adsorbates with Designer Plasmonic Nanoparticles

Here we report a synthetic pathway toward Au truncated octahedral dual-rim nanoframes wherein two functional facets are formed including (1) eight hot nanogaps formed by hexagonal nanoframes embracing core circular nanorings for near-field focusing and (2) six flat squares that facilitate the formation of well-ordered arrays of nanoframes through self-assembly. The existence of intra-nanogaps in a single entity enables strong electromagnetic near-field focusing, allowing single-particle surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Then, we built all-hot-spot bulk SERS substrates with those entities, wherein the presence of truncated terraces with high homogeneity in size and shape facilitate spontaneous self-assembly into a highly ordered and uniform superlattice, exhibiting a limit of detection of attomolar concentrations toward 2-naphthalenethiol, which is 6 orders lower than that of monorim counterparts. The observed low limit of detection originates from the combined synergic effect from both inter-and intraparticle coupling in a superlattice, which we dubbed all-hot-spot bulk SERS substrates.

Automated summary

We report a synthetic pathway for the preparation of metal nanoframes with dual-rim structures, and demonstrate their application in single-particle surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) technique. By optimizing the structure and assembly, highly ordered and uniform superlattices can be constructed, which exhibit a detection limit at attomolar concentrations.