Synthesis and evaluation of the SERS effect of Fe3O4-Ag Janus composite materials for separable, highly sensitive substrates

Yanlin Li; Sen Yang; Xuegang Lu; Wenyuan Duan; Toshihiro Moriga

doi:10.1039/c8ra09569h

Synthesis and evaluation of the SERS effect of Fe₃O₄-Ag Janus composite materials for separable, highly sensitive substrates

RSC Adv. 2019 Jan 22;9(6):2877-2884. doi: 10.1039/c8ra09569h.

Authors

Yanlin Li¹, Sen Yang¹, Xuegang Lu¹, Wenyuan Duan¹, Toshihiro Moriga²

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Materials and Mesoscopic Physics, School of Science, Xi'an Jiaotong University Xi'an 710049 China yangsen@mail.xjtu.edu.cn xglu@mail.xjtu.edu.cn.
² Department of Chemical Science and Technology, Graduates School of Advanced Technology and Science, Tokushima University Tokushima 770-8506 Japan.

Abstract

Fe₃O₄-Ag Janus composites were synthesized using a two-step solvothermal method. The optimal growth process was determined by investigating the relationship between the particle morphologies and reaction time. Magnetic and Raman spectroscopic measurements showed that the as-synthesized Janus composites have both good magnetic response and significant surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) effects, as well as reproducibility. The calculated Raman enhancement factor reached an unprecedented magnitude of 10⁹ compared with the values of other Fe₃O₄-Ag compounds. Furthermore, the SERS effect was exhibited even at a concentration of probe molecules as low as 10^-13 M. This demonstrates that the as-synthesized Fe₃O₄-Ag Janus composite particles have promise for application as separable, highly sensitive SERS substrates.