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Bilayer composites consisting of gold nanorods and titanium dioxide as highly sensitive and self-cleaning SERS substrates

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Abstract

The authors describe a novel recyclable substrate for highly sensitive surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) studies. It consists of gold nanorods (AuNRs) self-assembled on a TiO2 film and combines the high SERS enhancement of assembled AuNRs with the self-cleaning property of the TiO2 film. It overcomes limitations of conventional SERS substrates such as limited sensitivity, high costs, and poor recyclability. The packing density of the AuNRs on the TiO2 film can be well adjusted, and therefore the SERS enhancement factor of the substrates can be tuned. For the optimized substrate, the SERS enhancement factor is as high as 5.4 × 1010 (Raman laser at 782 nm with 10% of 1.15 mW). This indicates extremely high sensitivity and is promising in terms of single molecule detection. Raman mapping experiments showed the SERS signal to be homogeneously distributed over the whole surface, with a maximal deviation of 3.5%. The SERS activity of this substrate can be restored by degradation of the probe molecules through TiO2 photocatalysis under UV irradiation. In our perception, these findings open a new venue for developing ultra-sensitive and recyclable SERS substrates.

Bilayer composites composed of gold nanorods (AuNRs) and titanium dioxide (TiO2) show strong surface enhanced Raman scattering enhancement under 782-nm laser excitation and display high sensitivity and good recyclability.

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Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Australian Research Council (ARC) projects (DP1096185, DP160104456, FT0990942 and others) for this work. We also acknowledge access to the Monash University Microscopy and Microanalysis Research Facilities through Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy (MCEM), in conjunction with Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication (MCN).

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Author notes

  1. Yanru Bu and Kang Liu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, 3800, Australia

    Yanru Bu, Kang Liu, Yaoxin Hu, Yusuf V. Kaneti, Xuchuan Jiang, Huanting Wang & Aibing Yu

  2. University of Lyon1, 69266, Lyon, France

    Arnaud Brioude

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  1. Yanru Bu
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  2. Kang Liu
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  3. Yaoxin Hu
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  4. Yusuf V. Kaneti
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  5. Arnaud Brioude
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  6. Xuchuan Jiang
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  7. Huanting Wang
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Correspondence to Xuchuan Jiang or Huanting Wang.

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Bu, Y., Liu, K., Hu, Y. et al. Bilayer composites consisting of gold nanorods and titanium dioxide as highly sensitive and self-cleaning SERS substrates. Microchim Acta 184, 2805–2813 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-017-2301-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-017-2301-5

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