Gold nanoflowers as efficient hot-spots for surface enhanced Raman scattering

TL;DR

Gold nanoflowers significantly enhance surface Raman scattering signals of organic molecules, achieving detection limits as low as 10^{-10} M with an enhancement factor of around 10^6, due to their petal structures.

Contribution

This study demonstrates the synthesis of gold nanoflowers and their application as highly efficient SERS substrates for detecting organic dye molecules.

Findings

Detection limit of R6G molecules is 10^{-10} M.

Raman signal enhancement factor is approximately 10^6.

Petal structures of nanoflowers are crucial for signal enhancement.

Abstract

Gold nanoflowers are known for their use as efficient host for surface enhanced Raman scattering of organic dye molecules. In this article, gold nanoflowers have been synthesised and rhodamine 6 G (R6G) molecules have been used as probe molecules. It is found that the gold nanoflowers can detect the presence of R6G molecules upto 10^{-10} M. The petals of these nanoflowers play an important role for the enhancement of Raman signals, and the intensity of Raman signals is enhanced many folds in presence of gold nanoflowers - the enhancement factor is of the order of 10^6. This is explained in terms of electromagnetic mechanism.