Growth mechanism of silver dendrites on porous silicon by single-step electrochemical synthesis method

• Published in: Applied physics. A, Materials science & processing Vol. 128; no. 10
• Main Authors: Ge, Daohan, Yao, Jun, Ding, Jie, Babangida, Abubakar A., Zhu, Chenxi, Ni, Chao, Zhao, Chengxiang, Qian, Pengfei, Zhang, Liqiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.10.2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Anisotropy; Applied physics; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemical synthesis; Condensed Matter Physics; Dendritic structure; Electrochemical etching; Liquid-solid interfaces; Machines; Manufacturing; Materials science; Nanotechnology; Optical and Electronic Materials; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Porous silicon; Processes; Raman spectra; Rhodamine 6G; Surfaces and Interfaces; Thin Films; Single-step electrochemical synthesis; SERS; Porous silicon; Silver dendrites; Mechanism
• ISSN: 0947-8396; 1432-0630
• DOI: 10.1007/s00339-022-06054-2

Silver micro/nanostructures are often used to enhance surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) due their hotspot effect. In this paper, a single-step electrochemical etching method was used to prepare silver dendrites with stems, branches and leaf morphology on porous silicon. A detailed analysis of the evolution and growth mechanism of the silver dendrites on the porous silicon was conducted, based on diffusion-limited aggregation, the anisotropy associated with the solid–liquid interface energy, and taking into account different growth rates. The SERS efficiency of the analyte molecule Rhodamine 6G was evaluated, achieving a low detection limit of up to 10 –11  M concentration. The linear relationship between Rhodamine 6G concentration and Raman peak intensity is good within the concentration range of 10 –4 –10 –11  M, and the linear fitting equation is y  = − 4479.4 x + 41,952.9 ( R 2  = 0.9815). Therefore, the results indicate that different silver dendrites can be prepared by controlling the time, which is beneficial for the design of silver dendrite-based composites with high SERS performance.