title: Tailoring Size and Coverage Density of Silver Nanoparticles on Monodispersed Polymer Spheres as Highly Sensitive SERS Substrates.
abstract: Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were deposited onto the monodispersed carboxylic polystyrene (CPS) spheres by an improved in situ reduction method. The size and coverage density of the AgNPs on the surface of CPS spheres could be easily tailored by tuning the concentrations of carboxylic functional groups and silver precursor. The morphologies and structures of the resulting CPS/Ag hybrid particles were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-Vis-NIR spectrometer and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), etc. The surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) performances of the resulting uniform CPS/Ag hybrid particles were investigated using 4-aminobenzenethiol (4-ABT) as the probe molecule. The optimized CPS/Ag hybrid particles show high enhancement factor (EF) of 2.71×10(7) , low limit of detection (LOD) of 10(-10)  m and good reproducibility with relative standard deviation (RSD) of 9.64 %. The good SERS improvement properties demonstrate these hybrid particles could be employed as simple and effective substrates in the SERS spectroscopy.
authors: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Materials for High Density Electronic Packing, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055, P. R. China.|Shenzhen College of Advanced Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055, P. R. China.
authors: Yougen
authors: Y
authors: Hu
authors: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Materials for High Density Electronic Packing, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055, P. R. China.
authors: Tao
authors: T
authors: Zhao
authors: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Materials for High Density Electronic Packing, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055, P. R. China. pl.zhu@siat.ac.cn.|Department of Electronic Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong, 999077, P. R. China. pl.zhu@siat.ac.cn.
authors: Pengli
authors: P
authors: Zhu
authors: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Materials for High Density Electronic Packing, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055, P. R. China.|Nano Science and Technology Institute, University of Sciences and Technology of China, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 215123, P. R. China.
authors: Yu
authors: Y
authors: Zhu
authors: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Materials for High Density Electronic Packing, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055, P. R. China.
authors: Xianwen
authors: X
authors: Liang
authors: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Materials for High Density Electronic Packing, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055, P. R. China.
authors: Rong
authors: R
authors: Sun
authors: Department of Electronic Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong, 999077, P. R. China.|School of Materials Sciences and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, 30332, USA.
authors: Ching-Ping
authors: CP
authors: Wong
keywords: Raman spectroscopy; in situ reduction; polystyrene spheres; silver nanoparticles; surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)