Astronomical liquid mirrors as highly ultrasensitive, broadband-operational surface-enhanced Raman scattering-active substrates

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• 作者：Tai-Yen Lu¹ ; Yang-Chun Lee¹ ; Yu-Ting Yen ; Chen-Chieh Yu ; Hsuen-Li Chen ; ^{hsuenlichen@ntu.edu.tw" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author}
• 关键词：Surface-enhanced Raman scattering ; Astronomical liquid mirror ; Ultrasensitive ; Hot spots everywhere ; Broadband-operational
• 刊名：Journal of Colloid and Interface Science
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：15 March 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：466
• 期：Complete
• 页码：80-90
• 全文大小：3355 K

文摘

In this study, we found that an astronomical liquid mirror can be prepared as a highly ultrasensitive, low-cost, highly reproducible, broadband-operational surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-active substrate. Astronomical liquid mirrors are highly specularly reflective because of their perfectly dense-packed silver nanoparticles; they possess a large number and high density of hot spots that experience a very high intensity electric field, resulting in excellent SERS performance. When using the liquid mirror-based SERS-active substrate to detect 4-aminothiophenol (4-ATP), we obtained measured analytical enhancement factors (AEFs) of up to 2.7 × 10¹² and detection limits as low as 10⁻¹⁵ M. We also found that the same liquid mirror could exhibit superior SERS capability at several distinct wavelengths (532, 632.8, and 785 nm). The presence of hot spots everywhere in the liquid mirror provided highly repeatable Raman signals from low concentrations of analytes. In addition, the astronomical liquid mirrors could be transferred readily onto cheap, flexible, and biodegradable substrates and still retain their excellent SERS performance, suggesting that they might find widespread applicability in various (bio)chemical detection fields.