Royal Society of Chemistry, Journal of Materials Chemistry C Materials for optical and electronic devices, 35(2), p. 7216, 2014
DOI: 10.1039/c4tc00603h
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There is strong interest in plasmonic nanostructures that uniformly enhance Raman signals of chemical and biological molecules for trace detection using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Although resonant excitation of localized surface plasmons of single or assembled metallic nanoparticles can generate large electromagnetic fields, their SERS effects suffer from poor reproducibility and uniformity, limiting the highly reliable and stable applications. Here we report self-supported large-scale nanoporous hybrid films with high-density and uniform hot spots, produced by the implantation of SnO nanoparticles into nanoporous Au/Ag bimetallic films (NP Au/SnO/Ag), for trace detections of both resonant and nonresonant molecules. The NP Au/SnO/Ag films exhibit extraordinary SERS enhancements, which increase with the increasing density of Au/SnO/Ag sandwich protrusions, as a result of the formation of abundant and uniform hot spots. The nanogaps in their wrinkled films further improve the capability to detect molecules in single molecular levels, making the hybrid films promising SERS-active substrates with superior reproducibility and reliability for applications in life science and environment protection.