Optical Characterization of Electro-spun Polymer Nanofiber based Silver Nanotubes

TL;DR

This paper reports the optical characterization of novel porous silver nanotubes synthesized via electrospinning, demonstrating their plasmonic properties and potential for enhanced Raman scattering applications.

Contribution

It introduces a new synthetic method for porous silver nanotubes and characterizes their optical and plasmonic properties for the first time.

Findings

Extended absorption peak at 350-700 nm

Plasmonic behavior indicating high SERS efficiency

Potential for optical sensing applications

Abstract

Nanotubes of various kinds have been prepared in the last decade, starting from the discovery of carbon nanotubes. Recently other types of nanotubes including metallic (Au), inorganic (TiO2, HfS2, V7O16, CdSe, MoS2), and polymeric (polyaniline, polyacrylonitrile) have been produced. Herein we present a novel synthetic procedure leading to a new kind of porous, high-surface-area nanoparticle nanotubes (NPNTs). This study characterizes the synthesized silver nanotubes at optical wavelengths. The absorption spectrum of PAN washed silver nanotubes shows an extended absorption peak at visible wavelengths ranging from 350 to 700 nm. In addition, the absorption spectrum of randomly oriented silver nanotubes showed plasmonic behavior, indicating high efficient surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) performance.