title: Carbon-Dot/Silver-Nanoparticle Flexible SERS-Active Films.
abstract: Development of effective platforms for surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensing has mostly focused on fabrication of colloidal metal surfaces and tuning of their surface morphologies, designed to create "hot spots" in which plasmonic fields yield enhanced SERS signals. We fabricated distinctive SERS-active flexible films comprising polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) embedding carbon dots (C-dots) and coated with silver nano-particles (Ag NPs). We show that the polymer-associated Ag NPs and C-dots intimately affected the physical properties of each other. In particular, the C-dot-Ag-NP-polymer films exhibited SERS properties upon deposition of versatile targets, both conventional SERS-active dyes as well as bacterial samples. We show that the SERS response was correlated to the formation C-dots within the polymer film and the physical proximity between the C-dots and Ag NPs, indicating that coupling between the plasmonic fields of the Ag NPs and C-dots' excitons constituted a prominent factor in the SERS properties.
authors: Department of Chemistry, Ben Gurion University of the Negev , Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
authors: Susanta Kumar
authors: SK
authors: Bhunia
authors: Ilse Katz Institute for Nanotechnology, Ben Gurion University of the Negev , Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
authors: Leila
authors: L
authors: Zeiri
authors: Department of Chemistry, Ben Gurion University of the Negev , Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
authors: Joydeb
authors: J
authors: Manna
authors: Department of Chemistry, Ben Gurion University of the Negev , Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
authors: Sukhendu
authors: S
authors: Nandi
authors: Department of Chemistry, Ben Gurion University of the Negev , Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.|Ilse Katz Institute for Nanotechnology, Ben Gurion University of the Negev , Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
authors: Raz
authors: R
authors: Jelinek
keywords: Ag nanoparticles; SERS; bacterial sensors; carbon dots; plasmon