Preparation and SERS applications of TaO composite nanostructures.

Noble metal and semiconductor composite substrates possess high sensitivity, excellent stability, good biocompatibility, and selective enhancement, making them an important research direction in the field of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). TaO, as a semiconductor material with high thermal stability, corrosion resistance, outstanding optical properties, and catalytic performance, has great potential in SERS research. This study aims to design and fabricate a composite SERS substrate based on TaO nanostructures, achieving optimal detection performance by combining the urchin-like structure of TaO with silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs).

Preparation and surface-enhanced Raman scattering properties of GO/Ag/TaO composite substrates.

The composite substrate composed of precious metal, semiconductor and graphene has not only high sensitivity and uniform Raman signal but also stable chemical properties, which is one of the important topics in the field of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). In this paper, a sandwich SERS substrate based on tantalum oxide (TaO) is designed and fabricated. The substrate has high sensitivity, stable performance and high quantification capability.

Elevating the density and intensity of hot spots by repeated annealing for high-efficiency SERS.

The simultaneous output of highly sensitive and reproducible signals for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) technology remains difficult. Here, we propose a two-dimensional (2D) composite structure using the repeated annealing method with MoS film as the molecular adsorbent. This method provides enlarged Au nanoparticle (NP) density with much smaller gap spacing, and thus dramatically increases the density and intensity of hot spots.

SERS substrate based on the flexible hybrid of polydimethylsiloxane and silver colloid decorated with silver nanoparticles.

Various flexible SERS sensors have attracted widespread concern in performing the direct identification of the analytes adsorbed on arbitrary surfaces. Here, a sample method was proposed to integrate plasmonic nanoparticles into polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to fabricate flexible substrate for the decoration of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). The flexible SERS sensor based on AgNPs/AgNPs-PDMS offers highly sensitive Raman detection with enhancement factor up to 8.

3D SERS substrate based on Au-Ag bi-metal nanoparticles/MoS hybrid with pyramid structure.

It is very vital to construct the dense hot spots for the strong surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) signals. We take full advantage of the MoS edge-active sites induced from annealing the Ag film on the surface of the MoS. Furthermore, the composite structure of Au-Ag bi-metal nanoparticles (NPs)/MoS hybrid with pyramid structure is obtained by the in situ grown AuNPs around AgNPs, which serves the optimal SERS performance (enhancement factor is ~9.