PNNL

Abstract

We present surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and Raman imaging of small organic molecules at well-defined nanostructures formed by single silver nanowires (NWs). We show that SERS can be obtained at single, crossed, and bundled Ag NWs for mercaptopyridine, adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. Crossed wires and parallel Ag NWs have SERS enhancement factors much higher than single Ag NWs. New additional junctions formed by a silver nanoparticle and a single Ag NW, and bundled NWs provide SERS intensity higher than a single Ag NW. The SERS signal of single Ag NWs can be further enhanced by decorating the Ag NW surface with gold nanoparticles using electroless deposition. Single Ag NW Raman imaging with a 10 ms time resolution when compared with photoluminescence (PL) imaging results reveal a different dynamic response of SERS and PL under steady state laser excitation. Dynamic photoluminescence blinking activities are suppressed in the presence of the surface coating of Raman active molecules (e.g., mercaptopyridine) and the SERS signal is quite stable in a wide field excitation configuration. The Discrete Dipole Approximation (DDA) method was used to calculate the local field intensity that can be applied to help understand the enhanced PL and SERS at the junction of Ag NWs