Graphene isolated Au nanoparticle arrays with high reproducibility for high-performance surface-enhanced Raman scattering

• Published in: Sensors and actuators. B, Chemical Vol. 222; pp. 1175 - 1183
• Main Authors: Xu, Shicai, Jiang, Shouzhen, Wang, Jihua, Wei, Jie, Yue, Weiwei, Ma, Yong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.01.2016
• Subjects: Adenosine; Adenosines; Arrays; Au nanoparticle arrays; Gold; Graphene; Nanostructure; Raman scattering; Reproducibility; SERS; Vibration mode; Adenosine; Nanostructure; Graphene; SERS; Au nanoparticle arrays
• ISSN: 0925-4005; 1873-3077
• DOI: 10.1016/j.snb.2015.08.009

An efficient surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate has been developed based on highly ordered arrays of graphene–isolated Au nanoparticle (G/AuNP). By combining the electromagnetic enhancement activity of AuNP arrays and unique physical/chemical properties of graphene, the G/AuNP arrays shows high performance in terms of sensitivity, signal-to-noise ratio and reproducibility. The average enhancement factor obtained from the G/AuNP arrays for rhodamine 6G probe molecules is over 107. The maximum deviations of SERS intensities from 20 positions of a same SERS substrate are in the range of 4.74% to 6.89% and from 20 different substrates in various batches are in the range of 5.67% to 8.37%, depending on different vibration modes. As a practical application of this SERS system, we detect the adenosine concentration in human serum. The detection results show a good linear correlation between SERS intensity and adenosine concentration within the range of 2 to 250nM. This work may open up new opportunities in developing the applications of SERS in biomedical diagnostics, biological sensing and other biotechnology.