title: Dendritic nanostructures of silver: facile synthesis, structural characterizations, and sensing applications.
abstract: Silver nanodendrites are synthesized by a simple surfactant-free method using a suspension of zinc microparticles as a heterogeneous reducing agent. Structural characterizations suggest the preferential growth along 100 and 111 directions by oriented attachment of silver nanocrystals in the diffusion limit, leading to the formation of silver nanodendrites 20-30 nm in stem and branch diameter and 5-50 microm in length. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering studies show that the silver nanodentrites give an intensive and enhanced Raman scattering when pyridine was used as a probing molecule. We have also demonstrated that the silver nanodendrites increase the sensitivity of an electrochemical glucose biosensor by as much as 1-2 orders of magnitude.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Xiaogang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.forename: Yu-Tao
authors.initials: YT
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Martin Wing Cheung
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Mak
authors.forename: Kwan Yee
authors.initials: KY
authors.lastname: Cheung
authors.forename: Xiao-Yuan
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Reinhard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Renneberg
authors.forename: Shihe
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yang