Characterization and Optimization of Novel Nanostructured Metallic Substrates for Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a highly sensitive technique for quantifying trace amounts of analyte adsorbed at a roughened metal surface. We have shown that novel gold nanostructured films, simply fabricated using gold nanoparticles and latex microspheres, can be used as highly sensitive SERS substrates. The films are templated by layers of colloidal crystals and display long ranged ordered regions, and porosity on two length scales that results in high surface area. By integrating these substrates into a flow chamber we have obtained consistent reproducible data and demonstrated the quantitative detection of sodium cyanide in the concentration range from 5 to 500 ppb, with detection significantly enhanced by lowering the pH after cyanide adsorption. We have found that the optimum size of the latex microspheres is approximately equal to the wavelength of the laser. Finally, the SERS activity of the gold substrates coated with silver nanoparticles was investigated using methyl phosphonic acid (MPA). Detection of MPA was dependent on the time between substrate coating and the SERS measurement. These studies show that novel materials formed by simple wet chemistry techniques can be used efficiently in practical devices for the detection of chemical agents.