Effect of Pore Size and Film Thickness on Gold-Coated Nanoporous Anodic Aluminum Oxide Substrates for Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Sensor

Sensors

Aschalew Kassu³  Carlton Farley²  Anup Sharma²  Wonkyu Kim¹  Junpeng Guo¹ 

[1] Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alabama in Huntsville, 301 Sparkman Dr., Huntsville, AL 35899, USA;Department of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, Alabama A & M University, 4900 Meridian Street, Normal, AL 35762, USA;;Department of Engineering, Construction Management & Ind. Tech., Alabama A & M University, 4900 Meridian Street, Normal, AL 35762, USA

关键词: surface enhanced Raman scattering;    sensing;    nanoporous substrates;    anodic aluminum oxide;    chemical sensor;    optical sensor;    ceramic membranes;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s151229778

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

A sensitive surface enhanced Raman scattering chemical sensor is demonstrated by using inexpensive gold-coated nanoporous anodic aluminum oxide substrates. To optimize the performance of the substrates for sensing by the Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) technique, the size of the nanopores is varied from 18 nm to 150 nm and the gold film thickness is varied from 30 nm to 120 nm. The sensitivity of gold-coated nanoporous surface enhanced Raman scattering sensor is characterized by detecting low concentrations of Rhodamine 6G laser dye molecules. The morphology of the SERS substrates is characterized by atomic force microscopy. Optical properties of the nanoporous SERS substrates including transmittance, reflectance, and absorbance are also investigated. Relative signal enhancement is plotted for a range of substrate parameters and a detection limit of 10⁻⁶ M is established.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.