Electrodeposition of a Silver Nanoparticle Substrate with Application for Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS)

Abstract

A silver substrate with fine nanograins was prepared by electrodeposition. The deposition potential was approximately −1.0 V which was consistent with a mechanism dominated by progressive nucleation. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that the Ag nanoparticles were between 8 and 16 nm in size mainly. The electrodeposition and the nucleation mechanism were further studied by a three-electrode system. The crystalline particles were small and closely arranged due to the dominance of progressive nucleation. The uniformity of the substrate was determined by two-dimensional surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) mapping using rhodamine 6 G (R6G) as the probe. The Raman surface enhancement was evaluated. The results showed that when the analyte concentration was 10⁻¹²mol·L⁻¹ the most intense rhodamine 6 G peak at 611 cm⁻¹ was present.

Keywords:

• electrodeposition
• scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
• silver nanoparticles
• surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)
• rhodamine 6G

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Jiaxing Science and Technology Project [2019AD32017, 2020AD10017, and 2020AY10008] and the Open Project Program of Key Laboratory of Yarn Materials Forming and Composite Processing Technology, Zhejiang Province (Number MTC2019-01).