Amorphous Carbon Generation as a Photocatalytic Reaction on DNA-Assembled Gold and Silver Nanostructures

Background signals from in situ-formed amorphous carbon, despite not being fully understood, are known to be a common issue in few-molecule surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). Here, discrete gold and silver nanoparticle aggregates assembled by DNA origami were used to study the conditions for...

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Published inMolecules (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 24; no. 12; p. 2324
Main Authors Heck, Christian, Kanehira, Yuya, Kneipp, Janina, Bald, Ilko
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Switzerland MDPI AG 24.06.2019
MDPI
Subjects
Adsorbates
amorphous carbon
Blinking
Calcium
Calcium fluoride
Carbon
Carbon - chemistry
Catalysis
Deoxyribonucleic acid
Desorption
DNA
DNA - chemistry
DNA origami
Gold
Gold - chemistry
Lasers
Metal Nanoparticles - chemistry
Metal Nanoparticles - ultrastructure
Microscopy, Atomic Force
nanolenses
nanoparticle dimers
Nanoparticles
Nanostructures - chemistry
Nanostructures - ultrastructure
Photocatalysis
Photochemical Processes
Photodegradation
SERS
Silicon
Silicon wafers
Silver
Silver - chemistry
Spectrum Analysis
Variation
nanolenses
amorphous carbon
DNA origami
SERS
nanoparticle dimers
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Summary:Background signals from in situ-formed amorphous carbon, despite not being fully understood, are known to be a common issue in few-molecule surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). Here, discrete gold and silver nanoparticle aggregates assembled by DNA origami were used to study the conditions for the formation of amorphous carbon during SERS measurements. Gold and silver dimers were exposed to laser light of varied power densities and wavelengths. Amorphous carbon prevalently formed on silver aggregates and at high power densities. Time-resolved measurements enabled us to follow the formation of amorphous carbon. Silver nanolenses consisting of three differently-sized silver nanoparticles were used to follow the generation of amorphous carbon at the single-nanostructure level. This allowed observation of the many sharp peaks that constitute the broad amorphous carbon signal found in ensemble measurements. In conclusion, we highlight strategies to prevent amorphous carbon formation, especially for DNA-assembled SERS substrates.
Bibliography:Current address: School of Chemistry, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israel.
ISSN:1420-3049
1420-3049
DOI:10.3390/molecules24122324