A New Smart Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Sensor Based on pH-Responsive Polyacryloyl Hydrazine Capped Ag Nanoparticles

Shuai Yuan; Fengyan Ge; Man Zhou; Zaisheng Cai; Shanyi Guang

doi:10.1186/s11671-017-2257-8

A New Smart Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Sensor Based on pH-Responsive Polyacryloyl Hydrazine Capped Ag Nanoparticles

Nanoscale Res Lett. 2017 Aug 14;12(1):490. doi: 10.1186/s11671-017-2257-8.

Authors

Shuai Yuan¹, Fengyan Ge^{2

3}, Man Zhou¹, Zaisheng Cai¹, Shanyi Guang¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Donghua University, 201620, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
² College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Donghua University, 201620, Shanghai, People's Republic of China. fyge@dhu.edu.cn.
³ Key Laboratory of Textile Science & Technology, Ministry of Education, Donghua University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China. fyge@dhu.edu.cn.

Abstract

A novel pH-responsive Ag@polyacryloyl hydrazide (Ag@PAH) nanoparticle for the first time as a surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate was prepared without reducing agent and end-capping reagent. Ag@PAH nanoparticles exhibited an excellent tunable detecting performance in the range from pH = 4 to pH = 9. This is explained that the swelling-shrinking behavior of responsive PAH can control the distance between Ag NPs and the target molecules under external pH stimuli, resulting in the tunable LSPR and further controlled SERS. Furthermore, Ag@PAH nanoparticles possessed an ultra-sensitive detecting ability and the detection limit of Rhodamine 6G reduced to 10^-12 M. These advantages qualified Ag@PAH NP as a promising smart SERS substrate in the field of trace analysis and sensors.

Keywords: Ag@PAH NPs; SERS; Tunable; Ultra-sensitive; pH-responsive.