Theoretical study on SERRS of rhodamine 6G adsorbed on Ag2 cluster: chemical mechanism via intermolecular or intramolecular charge transfer

Abstract The problem of the chemical enhancement of rhodamine 6G (R6G) adsorbed on silver cluster has been theoretically investigated by charge difference densities (CDDs) to show the direct charge transfer (CT) evidence. For surface‐enhanced resonance Raman scattering (SERRS) of R6G excited at 514.5 nm, the enhancements of v (151) and v (154) result from weak intermolecular (from Ag to R6G) CT and the strong intramolecular CT [similar to that of resonance Raman scattering (RRS) of R6G], respectively. The possibility of the SERRS of R6G contributed from pure intermolecular CT is also discussed, when the incident light is close to the new metal–R6G CT excited state at 1571.4 nm. Meanwhile compared with the absorption process the fluorescence yield of R6G is investigated by transition densities and CCDs. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.