Fabrication and SERS Performances of Metal/Si and Metal/ZnO Nanosensors: A Review

Abstract

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensors are very powerful analytical tools for the highly sensitive detection of chemical and biological molecules. Substantial efforts have been devoted to the design of a great number of hybrid SERS substrates such as silicon or zinc oxide nanosystems coated with gold/silver nanoparticles. By comparison with the SERS sensors based on Au and Ag nanoparticles/nanostructures, higher enhancement factors and excellent reproducibilities are achieved with hybrid SERS nanosensors. This enhancement can be due to the appearance of hotspots located at the interface between the metal (Au/Ag) and the semiconducting substrates. Thus, in this last decade, great advances in the domain of hybrid SERS nanosensors have occurred. In this short review, the recent advances of these hybrid metal-coated semiconducting nanostructures as SERS sensors of chemical and biological molecules are presented.

Hybrid Au/Si Disk-Shaped Nanoresonators on Gold Film for Amplified SERS Chemical Sensing

“…Thus, this supplementary enhancement can be exploited to amplify the SERS effect [21,32,33,34]. Another pathway for realizing significant EFs is to employ Si nanowires (SiNW) or nanopillars (SiNP) coupled to metallic nanoparticles or covered by a metallic layer allowing thus the obtaining of a better detection limit [35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43]. Moreover, fabrication techniques of large-surface may allow the realization of disordered Si nanowires.…”

A Review of Microwave Synthesis of Zinc Oxide Nanomaterials: Reactants, Process Parameters and Morphologies

“…ZnO NPs are also applied in deodorants, medical and sanitary materials, glass, ceramic, as well as self-cleaning materials [ 115 , 122 ]. In optoelectronics, various ZnO nanostructures are used for producing e.g., refractive index sensors [ 123 ], surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensors [ 124 ], lasers, UV detectors, and UV diodes [ 74 , 125 , 126 , 127 , 128 ]. ZnO nanostructures may serve for producing sensors of gases [ 129 , 130 , 131 , 132 , 133 , 134 , 135 , 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 , 143 , 144 , 145 , 146 , 147 , 148 , 149 , 150 , 151 , 152 ] such as steam (humidity, H 2 O) [ 133 ], ammonia (NH 3 ) [ 129 , 130 , 131 , 143 ], nitrogen (N 2 ) [ 131 ], nitrogen monoxide (NO) [ 129 , 130 , 139 ], nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) [ 129 , …”

Plasmonics and its Applications

“…Moreover, theoretical, computational, and numerical simulation tools have been developed in this last decade, allowing for a better understanding of the optical properties of plasmonic systems [1]. Thus, all these optical properties of plasmonic systems can enable a great number of applications, such as biosensors [15,16,17,18,19,20], optical devices [21,22,23,24], and photovoltaic devices [25,26,27,28].…”