Capillary force-induced glue-free printing of Ag nanoparticle arrays for highly sensitive SERS substrates.
The fabrication of well-ordered metal nanoparticle structures onto a desired substrate can be effectively applied to several applications. In this work, well-ordered Ag nanoparticle line arrays were printed on the desired substrate without the use of glue materials. The success of the method relies on the assembly of Ag nanoparticles on the anisotropic buckling templates and a special transfer process where a small amount of water rather than glue materials is employed. The anisotropic buckling templates can be made to have various wavelengths by changing the degree of prestrain in the fabrication step. Ag nanoparticles assembled in the trough of the templates via dip coating were successfully transferred to a flat substrate which has hydrophilic surface due to capillary forces of water. The widths of the fabricated Ag nanoparticle line arrays were modulated according to the wavelengths of the templates. As a potential application, the Ag nanoparticle line arrays were used as SERS substrates for various probing molecules, and an excellent surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) performance was achieved with a detection limit of 10(-12) M for Rhodamine 6G.
Nanobio Device Laboratory, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University , 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-Gu, Seoul 120-749, Republic of Korea.
Jaehong
J
Lee
Jungmok
J
Seo
Dayeong
D
Kim
Sera
S
Shin
Sanggeun
S
Lee
Chandreswar
C
Mahata
Hyo-Sung
HS
Lee
Byung-Wook
BW
Min
Taeyoon
T
Lee
D057230:Limit of Detection; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D012235:Rhodamines / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D012834:Silver / Q000737:chemistry*; D013059:Spectrum Analysis, Raman; D013499:Surface Properties
D012235:Rhodamines; C026188:rhodamine 6G; D012834:Silver