With their intriguing fine-tunable optoelectronic properties, gold nanorods (AuNRs) have become promising building blocks in the fabrication of surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates. In this work, immobilization of AuNRs on electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) fibers was accomplished by using polyelectrolyte (PE) decoration. Appropriate charges were imposed on the PCL fibers and the AuNRs by PE multilayer deposition which was investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). In addition, AuNR/PCL substrates with varied AuNR densities were fabricated and characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The SERS enhancement response of these substrates was measured using 4-mercaptopyridine as the probe molecule. All the substrates showed acceptable Raman signal enhancement which increased with the AuNR density (detection limit is 10-7M 4-mercaptopyridine for the substrate with medium AuNR density). The high sensitivity makes the substrate a promising candidate for the detection of trace amounts of toxic substances in the environment.

Immobilization of gold nanorods onto polycaprolactone fibers via polyelectrolyte decoration—A SERS substrate

244th National Meeting (2012)

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