Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy based on black silver and micro-pyramids array

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has been increasingly utilized as an analytical technique with significant chemical and biological applications due to its high sensitivity, selectivity and accuracy. As nanotextured surfaces play a key role in SERS, production of highly sensitive, low cost, uniform, high throughput and biologically compatible SERS substrates and evaluation of the performance of SERS substrates remain as important issues for industrialization of SERS. This thesis presents the fabrication, modeling and characterization of two kinds of SERS substrates: one has a nanoconic surface structure, which we call black silver, and the other consists of plastic replica molded pyramids, which we call SERS pyramids. The Raman enhancement factor is calculated as 6.38$\times$10⁷ for black silver and 1.6$\times$10⁶ for SERS pyramids. In addition, two exemplary applications of black silver SERS substrates---the detection of contaminants leached from lab-use plasticware and peptide label-free sensing---are demonstrated.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical & Computer Engr

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Xu, Zhida

Contributors dc:contributor

• Liu, Gang Logan

• Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)
• black silver
• RIE etching
• peptide sensing
• water contamination
• reactive-ion etching (RIE)

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2011 Zhida Xu

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26129

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/26129