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Facile Synthesis of Size-Tunable Silver Nanoparticles by Heteroepitaxial Growth Method for Efficient NIR SERS

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Abstract

We report a rapid and facile method to synthesize highly monodispersed silver nanoparticles (AgNP) by heteroepitaxial growth method using gold seed particles (size ~2 nm). Silver was deposited on gold seed particles by Tollen’s reaction. The presence of seed particles provided good control on the morphology and size distribution of AgNP, achieving the standard deviation in size ≤11 %. The real-time kinetics of AgNP formation revealed that the presence of gold seed particles increased the reaction rate by 7-fold compared to seedless approach. The size and extinction maxima of AgNP were tunable by varying the gold seed particles to silver molar ratio. This new heteroepitaxial growth method of AgNP synthesis is simple, fast (completing the reaction within 3 min), and eco-friendly to yield monodispersed nanoparticles. Further, these AgNP were used to develop efficient surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates for sensing applications which showed good repeatability and significantly improved enhancement factors in the near-infrared (NIR) region.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Centre for Research in Nanotechnology and Science (CRNTS) and Sophisticated Analytical Instrument Facility (SAIF), IIT Bombay, for FE-TEM and FE-SEM images acquired in support of this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. WRCBB, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, 400076, India

    Joseph Tharion & Soumyo Mukherji

  2. School of Biosciences and Technology, VIT University, Vellore, 632014, India

    Jitendra Satija

  3. Centre of Excellence for Nanoelectronics, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, 400076, India

    Soumyo Mukherji

  4. Centre for Research in Nanotechnology and Science, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, 400076, India

    Soumyo Mukherji

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  1. Joseph Tharion
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Correspondence to Soumyo Mukherji.

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Tharion, J., Satija, J. & Mukherji, S. Facile Synthesis of Size-Tunable Silver Nanoparticles by Heteroepitaxial Growth Method for Efficient NIR SERS. Plasmonics 10, 753–763 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-014-9862-5

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