Qualitative assessment of colloidal and planar SERS
substrates performance
V´ıt Pavelka1
, Duˇsan Hemzal2
, Jan Hrb´aˇc1
,
1
) Department of Chemistry, Masaryk University, Brno, CZ
408930@mail.muni.cz
2
) Department of Condensed Matter Physics, Masaryk University, Brno, CZ
Advanced techniques of preparation of nanostructured materials (predominantly
silver and gold) in colloids or as planar substrates are being continuously
developed to allow for better size and morphology control leading to more sensitive
and reproducible Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) measurements.
However, broader generalization of the relationship between physical and
analytical properties of the SERS substrates with respect to different analyte
types is still missing.
In our work we prepared series of silver and gold nanoparticle colloids with
spherical and nanoprism (silver) or spherical and nanorod (gold) morphologies.
In addition, we prepared nanostructured silver layers on doped silicon substrate
using electrochemical method. Different inorganic compounds (halides, pseudohalides,
sulfides, sulfates, etc.) were used for the activation of the nanoparticles
and SERS spectra of selected standard dyes as analytes (Rhodamine 6G, crystal
violet, brilliant cresyl blue, malachite green, etc.) were obtained.
For complex evaluation (baseline correction, peak recognition, cosmic ray
removal, etc.) of the large amount of Raman spectra obtained from these experiments
a software-based morphological filtering was used which will also be
discussed.