Self-assembly of colloidal nanoparticles into 2D arrays at water-oil interfaces: rational construction of stable SERS substrates with accessible enhancing surfaces and tailored plasmonic response
Self-assembly at water-oil interfaces has been shown to be a cheap, convenient and efficient route to obtain densely packed layers of plasmonic nanoparticles which have small interparticle distances. This creates highly plasmonically active materials that can be used to give strong SERS enhancement...
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| Published in | Nanoscale Vol. 13; no. 12; pp. 5937 - 5953 |
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| Main Authors | , , , , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
England
Royal Society of Chemistry
28.03.2021
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| Subjects | |
| Online Access | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Self-assembly at water-oil interfaces has been shown to be a cheap, convenient and efficient route to obtain densely packed layers of plasmonic nanoparticles which have small interparticle distances. This creates highly plasmonically active materials that can be used to give strong SERS enhancement and whose structure means that they are well suited to creating the highly stable, reproducible and uniform substrates that are needed to allow routine and accurate quantitative SERS measurements. A variety of methods have been developed to induce nanoparticle self-assembly at water-oil interfaces, fine tune the surface chemistry and adjust the position of the nanoparticles at the interface but only some of these are compatible with eventual use in SERS, where it is important that target molecules can access the active surface unimpeded. Similarly, it is useful to transform liquid plasmonic arrays into easy-to-handle free-standing solid films but these can only be used as solid SERS substrates if the process leaves the surface nanoparticles exposed. Here, we review the progress made in these research areas and discuss how these developments may lead towards achieving rational construction of tailored SERS substrates for sensitive and quantitative SERS analysis.
Nanoparticle self-assembly at water-oil interfaces has emerged as a convenient and efficient method to construct stable, active and reproducible plasmonic substrates for SERS. In this review we summarize the progress that has been made in this field. |
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| Bibliography: | Prof Steven E. J. Bell received his PhD from Queen's University Belfast and worked at the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory and the University of York before returning to QUB where he is a Professor of Physical Chemistry and Head of the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. His research centres on nanomaterials and Raman spectroscopy. He has a particular interest in the application of Raman methods to real world problems including medical and security applications and was founder/director of a successful company manufacturing Raman spectrometers. Chunchun Li obtained her BSc in 2017 from East China University of Science and Technology in Applied Chemistry. Currently, she is a PhD student in chemistry under the supervision of Prof Steven E. J. Bell at Queen's University Belfast. Her research focuses on understanding molecular adsorption and related phenomenon on noble metal nanomaterial surfaces via SE(R)RS for the construction of nanomaterials with tailored surface properties. Qinglu Chen obtained his BSc in 2019 from East China University of Science and Technology in Applied Chemistry. Currently, he is a PhD student in chemistry under the supervision of Prof Steven E. J. Bell at Queen's University Belfast. His research focuses on the construction of plasmonic nanomaterials for SE(R)RS applications. Dr Yikai Xu is currently an independent Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Queen's University Belfast. He obtained his BSc degree in Applied Chemistry at East China University of Science and Technology and completed his PhD research at QUB. Dr Xu is the recipient of the 2019 Kathleen Lonsdale Royal Irish Academy Prize for the most outstanding PhD research in chemical science in Ireland. His research interests are in the preparation and applications of plasmonic nanomaterials, particularly the preparation of hybrid materials containing plasmonic nanoparticle assemblies. Dr Ziwei Ye received his BS degree in applied chemistry at East China University of Science and Technology in China. He proceeded to study in chemistry at Queen's University Belfast and obtained his PhD degree in 2019. He then continued to pursue his research in materials chemistry and currently holds a position as research assistant at Queen's University Belfast. His current research focuses on fabrication of multidimensional nanomaterials and their applications in photonics and photocatalysis. ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
| ISSN: | 2040-3364 2040-3372 |
| DOI: | 10.1039/d0nr08803j |