Fast and eco-friendly fabrication of uniform Ag substrates for highly sensitive surface-enhanced Raman scattering

• Published in: Applied physics. A, Materials science & processing Materials science & processing, 2017-05, Vol.123 (5), p.1-6, Article 322
• Main Authors: Xu, Yongda, Li, Xin, Jiang, Lan, Meng, Ge, Ran, Peng, Lu, Yongfeng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied physics; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Condensed Matter Physics; Machines; Manufacturing; Materials science; Nanotechnology; Optical and Electronic Materials; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Processes; Raman spectra; Surfaces and Interfaces; Thin Films
• ISSN: 0947-8396; 1432-0630
• DOI: 10.1007/s00339-017-0937-y

This study proposed a fast, simple, eco-friendly method for obtaining highly sensitive and uniform surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) of silver (Ag) nanotextured substrates decorated with silver nanoparticles in open air. By splitting conventional femtosecond pulses (subpulse delay Δt = 0 ps) into pulse trains (subpulse delay Δt = 3 ps), the mean diameter of Ag nanoparticles was reduced by almost half and the amount of Ag nanoparticles with a diameter ranging from 20 to 60 nm was increased by more than 11 times. The substrate fabricated by femtosecond pulse trains has four main merits as follows: (1) High sensitivity: the maximum SERS enhancement factor is 1.26 × 10 9 ; (2) High efficiency: the fabrication rate can be up to 1600 μm 2 /s, which is 20–40 times faster than femtosecond photochemical reduction; (3) Good reproducibility: the relative standard deviation of the Raman signal intensity is 10.7%, which is one-third of that for conventional femtosecond laser; (4) Eco-friendly fabrication: neither chemical reagents nor vacuum conditions are needed during the fabrication process.