title: Ordered nanocap array composed of SiO₂-isolated Ag islands as SERS platform.
abstract: SERS-active substrate is fabricated by cosputtering Ag and SiO2 onto two-dimensional polystyrene (PS) colloidal particle templates in a magnetron sputtering system. When Ag and SiO2 are cosputtered onto ordered PS templates, the SiO2-isolated Ag island (SiO2-Ag) nanocap arrays with nanogaps and nanoscaled surface roughness form on PS particles, in which "hot spots" are facilely engineered on three-dimensional nanostructures. The surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activities of the SiO2-Ag nanocap arrays vary nonmonotonically and depend on the film thickness and surface roughness strongly. Under the optimized conditions, the SERS signal intensity of 4-aminothiophenol (PATP) is employed to evaluate the SERS ability (4.41 × 10(5)). The addition of SiO2 not only avoids photobleaching and background fluorescence but also decreases the oxidation rate of Ag and increases the stability of Ag particles. The results demonstrate the potential applications of this technique in reproducible SERS substrate.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Functional Materials Physics and Chemistry, Jilin Normal University, Ministry of Education , Siping 136000, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yaxin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Xiaoyu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: San
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Maobin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Cong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qu
authors.forename: Yongjun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jinghai
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang