SERS performance of gold nanotubes obtained by sputtering onto polycarbonate track-etched membranes.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a powerful and versatile tool for studying molecules on metallic surfaces with great impact on areas such as electrochemistry, catalysis and related subjects. The search for new SERS-active substrates with high performance, namely high enhancement factors and reproducibility, is currently the main focus of several research groups. Here is shown an alternative easy and inexpensive synthetic approach to a SERS-substrate comprised of gold nanotubes obtained by the sputtering onto polycarbonate track-etched membranes used as template.