Title: Improvement of Raman enhancement factor due to the use of silver nanoparticles coated obliquely aligned silicon nanowire arrays in SERS measurements

Authors: Luong Truc Quynh Ngan; Dao Tran Cao; Cao Tuan Anh; Le Van Vu

Addresses: Institute of Materials Science, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, 18 Hoang Quoc Viet, CauGiay, Hanoi, Vietnam ' Institute of Materials Science, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, 18 Hoang Quoc Viet, CauGiay, Hanoi, Vietnam ' Institute of Physics, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, 10 Dao Tan, CauGiay, Hanoi, Vietnam ' Hanoi University of Science, 334 Nguyen Trai, ThanhXuan, Ha Noi, Vietnam

Abstract: In this paper, we present the use of silver nanoparticles coated silicon nanowire (SiNW) arrays in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) measurements with emphasis on the use of obliquely instead of vertically aligned SiNW arrays. The obliquely aligned SiNW arrays were fabricated on Si(111) substrate, and the SiNWs were coated with silver nanoparticles with sizes in the 20-40 nm range. The results showed that with the use of obliquely instead of vertically aligned SiNW arrays, the Raman enhancement factor (REF) is increased by more than one order of magnitude and can reach 10¹⁴when malachite green is used as test sample. The mechanism causing the improvement of the REF is also discussed.

Keywords: Raman enhancement factor; REF; obliquely aligned SiNW; silicon nanowires; silver nanoparticles; surface-enhanced Raman scattering; SERS; malachite green; nanotechnology; SiNW arrays.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNT.2015.067895

International Journal of Nanotechnology, 2015 Vol.12 No.5/6/7, pp.358 - 366

Published online: 08 Mar 2015 *

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