A robust, flexible adhesive tape-based SERS substrate fabricated by polymer etching and subsequent Au coating on the exposed SiO2 nanosphere monolayer

Junming Cao; Jiewen Yang; Qi Wang; Xueguang Yuan; Hao Liu; Zhenqi Pang; Kai Liu; Shiwei Cai; Xiaomin Ren

doi:10.1016/j.saa.2022.121626

A robust, flexible adhesive tape-based SERS substrate fabricated by polymer etching and subsequent Au coating on the exposed SiO₂ nanosphere monolayer

Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2022 Nov 15:281:121626. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2022.121626. Epub 2022 Jul 14.

Authors

Junming Cao¹, Jiewen Yang¹, Qi Wang², Xueguang Yuan¹, Hao Liu¹, Zhenqi Pang¹, Kai Liu¹, Shiwei Cai¹, Xiaomin Ren¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, People's Republic of China; School of Electronic Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, People's Republic of China.
² State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, People's Republic of China; School of Electronic Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: wangqi@bupt.edu.cn.

PMID: 35868055
DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2022.121626

Abstract

With the rapid development of trace detection, high-performance flexible surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates have enjoyed steady growth of interest. In this paper, a facile method to improve the robustness of the flexible SERS substrate via the synergistic effect of rigid SiO₂ nanospheres and flexible tape was demonstrated for the first time. In detail, the spin-coated SiO₂ nanosphere monolayer was transferred from the host silicon wafer into the tape by peeling-off process, followed by O₂ plasma etching of tape polymer to expose the nanospheres, and final Au coating to form plentiful SERS "hotspots". The as-prepared SERS sample shows a detection limit of Rhodamine 6G (R6G) down to 10^-10 M and can afford a 500 times bending-releasing cyclic test. Our research provides a promising strategy to prepare robust SERS substrates which exhibit good potential in practical molecule detection on curved surfaces.

Keywords: Adhesive tape; Au coating; Flexible SERS substrate; Plasma etching; SiO(2) nanosphere monolayer.

MeSH terms

Gold / chemistry
Metal Nanoparticles* / chemistry
Nanospheres* / chemistry
Polymers
Silicon Dioxide / chemistry

Substances

Polymers
Gold
Silicon Dioxide