Graphene Oxide–Gold Nanocage Hybrid Platform for Trace Level Identification of Nitro Explosives Using a Raman Fingerprint

Trace level identification of explosive molecules are very important not only for security screening but also for the environment and human health. Driven by the need, the current article reports for the first time gold nanocage–graphene oxide hybrid platform for the spectral fingerprint and the trace level identification of RDX and TNT. Reported experimental data using RDX show that the surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) enhancement factor for graphene oxide (GO) attached gold nanocage assembly is 4 orders of magnitude higher than only nanocage, and it is due to the enormous field enhancement for the nanocage assembly. The current article demonstrates that label-free nitro-explosive identification limits using hybrid platform can be as low as 10 fM for TNT and 500 fM for RDX, which indicate that gold nanocage–graphene oxide assembly can be very attractive for a variety of practical applications.