title: Nanoclustered gold honeycombs for surface-enhanced Raman scattering.
abstract: A honeycomb-shaped gold substrate was developed for surface-enhanced Raman imaging (SERI). The honeycombs are composed of clusters of 50-70 nm gold nanoparticles and exhibit high Raman enhancement efficiency. An average surface enhancement factor (ASEF) of 1.7 × 10(6) was estimated for a monolayer of L-cysteine molecules adsorbed to gold via a thiol linkage. The presence of a linear relationship in the low concentration region was observed in SERI detection of malachite green isothiocyanate (MGITC). These results together with the high reproducibility and simple and cost-effective fabrication of this substrate suggest that it has utility for applications of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) in quantitative diagnoses and analyte detection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, 415 Durham Hall, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, United States.
authors.forename: Weinan
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Leng
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Vikesland