Shuangmei ZHU^1,2, Chunzhen FAN^1,3, Junqiao WANG¹, Jinna HE¹, and Erjun LIANG^1*

¹School of Physical Science and Engineering and Key Laboratory of Materials Physics of Ministry of Education of China, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, China
²Department of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Henan Institute of Engineering, Zhengzhou 451191, China
³State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics and Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China

(Received February 27, 2013; Accepted June 26, 2013)

Uniform and reproducible substrates for surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) are fabricated by self-assembly of Ag nanoparticles (NPs) on 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APTES) modified glass. Experimental results indicate that the Ag NPs with a narrow size distribution were assembled as a sub-monolayer which exhibits an excellent SERS-activity. The SERS enhancement factor is estimated to be 7.5× 10⁶ and the detection limit for crystal violet (CV) solution is about ∼10^-11 M. The uniformity and reproducibility of the SERS signals are tested by point-to-point and batch-to-batch measurements. It is confirmed that the self-assembled Ag NPs substrates has a high SERS reproducibility and a low standard deviation with respect to the Ag NPs on non-functionalized glass substrates. The self-assembled Ag NPs substrates can be widely used for the application of chemical and biochemical sensing.

Key words: Ag nanoparticles, self-assembled substrate, surface enhanced Raman scattering

^*E-mail address: ejliang@zzu.edu.cn