American Chemical Society, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 11(4), p. 5807-5812, 2012
DOI: 10.1021/am302102p
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We demonstrate here a novel high surface area GaN nanowall network substrate with plasmonic Ag nanodroplets, that can be employed as a highly sensitive, reproducible, and charge independent SERS substrate. The uniformity of the size and distribution of the Ag droplets and the absence of linker ligands result in large near-field intensity, while the GaN nanowall network morphology provides multiple reflections for signal enhancement. FDTD calculations simulate the observed hot-spot distribution and reiterate the higher performance of this hybrid substrate over conventional ones. Our studies on oppositely charged proteins provide a proof of concept for employing this as a versatile charge independent label free SERS substrate for trace biomolecule detection.