Chemical derivatization of oxide surfaces (silica, alumina, glass) is critical to the development of separation media, sensing surfaces, or biocompatible interfaces. There are few analytical methods that allow characterization of functionalized monolayers on these surfaces. Raman spectroscopy provides useful structural information as vibrational spectra and is compatible with oxide substrates. Raman scattering, however, is a weak effect, and its application to monolayer detection is challenging. In this work, two approaches to characterizing molecular layers on oxide surfaces with Raman spectroscopy are compared. First, gold nanoparticles are deposited onto a surface of interest, which enhance Raman scattering by surface-plasmon resonance. Secondly, monomolecular layers can also be detected by Raman scattering on porous oxide supports such as alumina or silica without any optical enhancement due to their high surface areas. These two methods are compared for monitoring reactions of silane-coupling agents and their subsequent functional group transformations on glass and silica surfaces.

Raman spectroscopy methods to detect monomolecular layers on oxide surfaces

245th National Meeting (2013)

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