Controlled fabrication of gold-coated 3D ordered colloidal crystal films and their application in surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

We report an alternative procedure to incorporate gold nanoparticles into 3D ordered colloidal crystal film. The size of gold nanoparticles within the films can be controlled from about 10 nm to about 60 nm by simply varying the gold plating time. The application of the as-prepared films in surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is investigated by using Rhodamine 6G (R6G) as probe molecules. It is found that the resultant gold-coated 3D ordered colloidal crystal films can be used as SERS substrates, exhibiting excellent enhancement ability.