Nanoclustered Gold Honeycombs\nfor Surface-Enhanced\nRaman Scattering

Abstract

A honeycomb-shaped gold substrate was developed for surface-enhanced\nRaman imaging (SERI). The honeycombs are composed of clusters of 50–70\nnm gold nanoparticles and exhibit high Raman enhancement efficiency.\nAn average surface enhancement factor (ASEF) of 1.7 × 10⁶ was estimated for a monolayer of l-cysteine molecules\nadsorbed to gold via a thiol linkage. The presence of a linear relationship\nin the low concentration region was observed in SERI detection of\nmalachite green isothiocyanate (MGITC). These results together with\nthe high reproducibility and simple and cost-effective fabrication\nof this substrate suggest that it has utility for applications of\nsurface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) in quantitative diagnoses\nand analyte detection.