ZnO Nanowire Arrays Decorated with Titanium Nitride Nanoparticles as Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering Substrates

TL;DR

This study demonstrates a simple, cost-effective method to create ZnO nanowire arrays decorated with TiN nanoparticles that serve as effective SERS substrates through a chemical enhancement mechanism.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel, facile fabrication process for TiN-decorated ZnO nanowire SERS substrates with demonstrated chemical enhancement effects.

Findings

TiN nanoparticles exhibit localized surface plasmon resonances at specific wavelengths.

Significant Raman signal enhancement observed for Nile Blue and Methylene Blue.

The SERS effect is primarily due to chemical charge transfer mechanisms.

Abstract

In this work, ZnO nanowire arrays decorated with titanium nitride (TiN) nanoparticles as surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates is demonstrated. ZnO nanowires were grown by hydrothermal synthesis while ~100 nm TiN nanoparticles were obtained by grinding commercial powders for several hours. They were then decorated on the ZnO nanowire arrays using acetone as the medium. Scanning electron microscopy confirmed the presence of TiN nanoparticles on the ZnO nanowires. TiN nanoparticles exhibited localized surface plasmon resonances at 430, 520 and 600 nm. SERS experiments using Nile Blue and Methylene Blue as the analyte molecules showed significant enhancement in the Raman signals. It is shown that the origin of the SERS effect is chemical in nature, due to charge transfer between the analyte molecule and the TiN nanoparticles. The current work, thus, represents a simple, cost-effective and facile method for the fabrication of TiN based surface enhanced Raman scattering substrates.