SURFACE ENHANCED RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY SUBSTRATE BASED ON GRAPHENE OXIDE/Ag

NANOPARTICLES/COTTON SWAB FOR SENSITIVE DETECTION OF ORGANIC MOLECULES

Nguyen Le Truong Giang, Hoang Duy Minh, Nguyen Thao Linh Chi, Luong Duc Anh, Le
Ngoc Long, Tran Van Khai and Tran Hoang Minh*
Faculty of Materials Technology, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology – Vietnam National University
(HCMUT-VNU), 268 Ly Thuong Kiet Street, District 10, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
*Corresponding: mhtran@hcmut.edu.vn

ABSTRACT
Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) is a powerful spectroscopic sensing
technique with the capability of detecting minute concentration of analyte in a sample by
analyzing the molecular fingerprint of that analyte. For the last two decades, the
development of materials for SERS has been continuously pushed for better performances.
In this project, we designed SERS substrate with better detection capability and more
efficient sample collection by combining the great versatility and absorbability of cotton
swab, strong plasmonic effect of Ag nanoparticles (NPs) with the superior electronic
properties and good adsorption of graphene oxide (GO). To demonstrate the performance
of the SERS substrate, different concentrations of Rhodamine B from 10−3 M to as low
as 10−10 M were successfully detected and the enhancement factors were estimated to be
3 x 1010 – 5 x 1010 . Moreover, our results also showed that by depositing a layer of GO Figure 2: (a) SEM images of Ag NPs/cotton swab, (b) The EDX graph of GO/AgNPs/cotton

on cotton swab coated with Ag NPs, the Raman signal was enhanced compared to the swab, (c) SEM images of NP Ag/cotton swab, (d) The EDX graph of NP Ag/cotton swab.

samples without GO.

METHODS

Figure 3: (a) Raman spectra of 10 -3 M – 10 -9 M RhB recorded from Ag NPs/cotton swab

substrate. The bottom spectrum was recorded from plain cotton swab, showing no clear RhB
fingerprint peaks, for comparison. (b) SERS performance comparison between GO/Ag
NPs/cotton swab and Ag NPs/cotton swab substrates at RhB concentrations from 10-3 M – 10-7 M
RhB and 10-8 M – 10-10 M RhB in the inset.

CONCLUSION
SERS substrates of Ag NPs/cotton swab and GO/Ag NPs/cotton swab were successfully
fabricated. Using RhB as probe molecule, we showed that our SERS substrates were capable
of detecting RhB concentrations as low as 10 -10 M. We also learned from our study that
coating GO over plasmonic Ag NPs increased SERS performance, perhaps due to charge
transfer ability leading to strong excited electric field enhancement and stronger molecular
interactions and adsorption of more analytes. Our next steps will be testing the sensitivity of
the substrates to pesticide on agricultural products as well as investigating the stability and
recyclability of the new substrates.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
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Figure 1: a) UV-Vis absoprtion spectrum of as-synthesized AgNPs, b) DLS particle size
analysis chart, c) XRD analysis of GO/Ag NPs/cotton swab and AgNPs, d) Particle size chart
obtained using ImageJ software.
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