Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy on a flat graphene surface
Open Access
- 23 May 2012
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Vol. 109 (24), 9281-9286
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1205478109
Abstract
Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is an attractive analytical technique, which enables single-molecule sensitive detection and provides its special chemical fingerprints. During the past decades, researchers have made great efforts towards an ideal SERS substrate, mainly including pioneering works on the preparation of uniform metal nanostructure arrays by various nanoassembly and nanotailoring methods, which give better uniformity and reproducibility. Recently, nanoparticles coated with an inert shell were used to make the enhanced Raman signals cleaner. By depositing SERS-active metal nanoislands on an atomically flat graphene layer, here we designed a new kind of SERS substrate referred to as a graphene-mediated SERS (G-SERS) substrate. In the graphene/metal combined structure, the electromagnetic “hot” spots (which is the origin of a huge SERS enhancement) created by the gapped metal nanoislands through the localized surface plasmon resonance effect are supposed to pass through the monolayer graphene, resulting in an atomically flat hot surface for Raman enhancement. Signals from a G-SERS substrate were also demonstrated to have interesting advantages over normal SERS, in terms of cleaner vibrational information free from various metal-molecule interactions and being more stable against photo-induced damage, but with a comparable enhancement factor. Furthermore, we demonstrate the use of a freestanding, transparent and flexible “G-SERS tape” (consisting of a polymer-layer-supported monolayer graphene with sandwiched metal nanoislands) to enable direct, real time and reliable detection of trace amounts of analytes in various systems, which imparts high efficiency and universality of analyses with G-SERS substrates.This publication has 36 references indexed in Scilit:
- Highly uniform and reproducible surface-enhanced Raman scattering from DNA-tailorable nanoparticles with 1-nm interior gapNature Nanotechnology, 2011
- Revealing the molecular structure of single-molecule junctions in different conductance states by fishing-mode tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopyNature Communications, 2011
- Gold nanorods 3D-supercrystals as surface enhanced Raman scattering spectroscopy substrates for the rapid detection of scrambled prionsProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011
- Gold on graphene as a substrate for surface enhanced Raman scattering studyApplied Physics Letters, 2010
- Vertically Oriented Sub-10-nm Plasmonic Nanogap ArraysNano Letters, 2010
- Large-Area Synthesis of High-Quality and Uniform Graphene Films on Copper FoilsScience, 2009
- Label-Free Biomedical Imaging with High Sensitivity by Stimulated Raman Scattering MicroscopyScience, 2008
- Designing, fabricating, and imaging Raman hot spotsProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2006
- Surface-enhanced Raman scatteringJournal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 1992
- Optical Constants of the Noble MetalsPhysical Review B, 1972