A chemical route to increase hot spots on silver nanowires for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy application.

The effective number of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) active hot spots on plasmonic nanostructures is the most crucial factor in ensuring high sensitivity in SERS sensing platform. Here we demonstrate a chemical etching method to increase the surface roughness of one-dimensional Ag nanowires, targeted at creating more SERS active hot spots along Ag nanowire's longitudinal axis for increased SERS detection sensitivity. Silver nanowires were first synthesized by the conventional polyol method and then subjected to chemical etching by NH(4)OH and H(2)O(2) mixture.

Number of graphene layers exhibiting an influence on oxidation of DNA bases: analytical parameters.

This article investigates the analytical performance of double-, few- and multi-layer graphene upon oxidation of adenine and guanine. We observed that the sensitivity of differential pulse voltammetric response of guanine and adenine is significantly higher at few-layer graphene surface than single-layer graphene. We use glassy carbon electrode as substrate coated with graphenes.

Chemically-modified graphenes for oxidation of DNA bases: analytical parameters.

We studied the electroanalytical performances of chemically-modified graphenes (CMGs) containing different defect densities and amounts of oxygen-containing groups, namely graphite oxide (GPO), graphene oxide (GO), thermally reduced graphene oxide (TR-GO) and electrochemically reduced graphene oxide (ER-GO) by comparing the sensitivity, selectivity, linearity and repeatability towards the oxidation of DNA bases. We have observed that for differential pulse voltammetric (DPV) detection of adenine and cytosine, all CMGs showed enhanced sensitivity to oxidation, while for guanine and thymine, ER-GO and TR-GO exhibited much improved sensitivity over bare glassy carbon (GC) as well as over GPO and GO. There is also significant selectivity enhancement when using GPO for adenine and TR-GO for thymine.

Graphene-based electrochemical sensor for detection of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) in seawater: the comparison of single-, few-, and multilayer graphene nanoribbons and graphite microparticles.

The detection of explosives in seawater is of great interest. We compared response single-, few-, and multilayer graphene nanoribbons and graphite microparticle-based electrodes toward the electrochemical reduction of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT). We optimized parameters such as accumulation time, accumulation potential, and pH.

Single-, few-, and multilayer graphene not exhibiting significant advantages over graphite microparticles in electroanalysis.

This report compares the electroanalytical performances of single- (G-SL), few- (G-FL), and multilayer graphene (G-ML), graphite microparticles, and edge-plane pyrolytic graphite electrodes in terms of sensitivity, linearity, and repeatability. We show that in the case of differential pulse voltammetric (DPV) detection of ascorbic acid, the sensitivity of a G-SL electrode is about 30% greater than that of G-ML and about 40% greater than graphite microparticles. However, in the case of DPV determination of uric acid, sensitivity is practically the same for all (G-SL, G-FL, and G-ML) and, importantly, the graphite microparticles do provide higher sensitivity than graphenes do for this analyte.