Search

A quick one-step fabrication of efficient SERS substrates by a modified approach based on a silver-mirror reaction (using Tollens’ reagent) is reported. Commercially available microscope slides or cover glass (coverslips) were used as-received, without special surface treatment. In contrast to the commonly used two-step process, the composition of the Tollens reagent was modified to use a single-step process. The obtained rather homogeneous films of densely packed nanoislands are promising for application as substrates for Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS), as demonstrated by several different kinds of molecules as analytes. In particular, the achieved level of detection of a standard dye analyte, down to 10-14 M of Rhodamine 6G, is in the range of best values reported in the literature. Low concentrations of some biomolecules are also detected, such as lysozyme (10-4 M), adenine (10-4 M), and salicylic acid (10-5 M). For some analytes, stronger SERS was observed in the drop, and for others after the solvent was dried. The possible reasons for this effect are described. By applying thermal annealing in the inert gas atmosphere, the Ag film morphology can be partially converted into a coral-like 3D structure that may be advantageous for the localization of the analyte in the “hot spots” and allow additional spectral tunability of the plasmon resonance.

A controllable variation of the photoluminescence (PL) intensity of semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) via their coupling to plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) is the potential basis for optoelectronic and sensing applications. In this work, the effect of Au NPs on the PL of colloidal CdTe QDs is investigated in solution and solid films. An PL enhancement for the QDs synthesized in water was observed in case of spectral overlap of the plasmon absorption band of and QD PL band. In case of Au NPs synthesized in dimethyl sulfoxyl the trend is to reduction of the PL intensity. For the reference samples prepared by mixing QDs not with Au NP solutions but with corresponding pure solvent, certain PL enhancement was observed and presumably attributed to reduction of self-absorption or non-radiative interparticle interaction in less concentrated QD solution. However, the contribution of this dilution-related enhancement is expected to be independent of the spectral properties of NPs and QDs. Therefore, the observed in this work different behavior of QD PL in certain combinations of QDs and NPs is attributed to interaction between electronic excitation in the QD and plasmon.