title: Gold mesostructures with tailored surface topography and their self-assembly arrays for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy.
abstract: We report a facile particle mediated aggregation protocol to synthesize "sea urchin"-like gold mesoparticles with tailored surface topography via a secondary nucleation and growth process. Surprisingly, these multitip Au mesoparticles are capable of self-assembling into monolayer or multiple layer arrays on Si substrates with a convincing reproducibility and homogeneity over large areas. Raman measurements show that these individual sea urchin-like multitipped gold mesoparticles exhibit a high enhancement of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). In addition, the sea urchin-like mesoparticle arrays display a further enhancement of SERS by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude over the individual mesoparticle due to the formation of additional hot spots between the particles. The current protocol stands out as a potentially interesting approach for the fabrication of technologically important SERS-based sensors.
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory for Nonequilibrium Synthesis and Modulation of Condensed Matter, School of Science, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Shann Xi, 710049, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jixiang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.forename: Shuya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Sergei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lebedkin
authors.forename: Zhiyuan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kruk
authors.forename: Manfred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kappes
authors.forename: Horst
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hahn