Mesoporous plasmonic nanocomposites based on Au/Ag-TiO aerogels as SERS substrates.

Au/Ag-TiO mesoporous nanocomposite aerogels are special materials that can be applied as efficient surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrates, in order to detect low concentration of analytes from aqueous environments. At the same time, they benefit from structural and intrinsic properties of aerogels and TiO, respectively, and also the plasmonic effects of Au/Ag nanoparticles. Here, several composites of TiO aerogel modified with various concentrations of Au, Ag, and a mixture of Au-Ag nanoparticles were prepared by applying two different methods of synthesis.