Fabrication and SERS Performance of Silver-Nanoparticle-Decorated Si/ZnO Nanotrees in Ordered Arrays

Abstract

Highly ordered treelike Si/ZnO hierarchical nanostructures are successfully prepared in a large scale by combining two common techniques, viz., photolithography-assisted wafer-scale fabrication of Si nanopillars and bottom-up hydrothermal growth of ZnO nanorods. Silver nanoparticles are decorated onto the nanotrees by photochemical reduction and deposition. The Si/ZnO/Ag hybrid nanotrees are employed as SERS-active substrates, which exhibit good performance in terms of high sensitivity and good reproducibility. In addition to the SERS application, such ordered Si/ZnO arrays might also find potential applications in light-emitting diodes and solar cells.

One-dimensional ZnO nanostructures: Solution growth and functional properties

“…An inbuilt Schottky barrier was suggested at the ZnO/Ag interface. Raman enhancement was observed in the Ag nanoparticles on ZnO nanowire arrays [92].…”

“…One main advantage of wet chemical methods is that, using ZnO seeds in the form of thin films or nanoparticles, ZnO nanowires can be grown on arbitrary substrates, such as Si wafers (flat [84], etched [82], and pillar array [92]), polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) [93], thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU) [94], paper [95], fibers [96,97], and carbon fibers [98], as illustrated in Fig. 5.…”

Surface enhanced Raman scattering substrates based on titanium nitride nanorods

“…After the treatment at 800°C, noticeable signal enhancement can be observed for the SERS spectra on the TiN NRs substrate. The Raman bands at 1656, 1514, 1368, 1195, 782, and 620 cm À1 are assigned to the xanthene ring stretch, ethylamine group wag, and carbon-oxygen stretch of R6G [25]. As the nitridation temperature rises to 900°C, the sample exhibits a higher SERS enhancement ability.…”

Fabrication and characterization of a large-area metal nano-grid wave plate

“…In optics, a large variety of nanofabricated optical elements, such as ultrathin polarizers 1 and wave retarders, 2,3 nanostructured antireflection coatings, 4 optical waveguides, 5 plasmonic nanoantennas and nanosensors, 6 substrates for surface enhanced Raman scattering, 7 and optical metamaterials, 8 have been developed and demonstrated to find numerous useful applications. As a specific class of nanofabricated optical elements, we mention periodic arrays of metal nanostructures, which can be designed to have a prescribed, strong, and spectrally highly selective optical response.…”