Noble metal-comparable SERS enhancement from semiconducting metal oxides by making oxygen vacancies

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) represents a very powerful tool for the identification of molecular species, but unfortunately it has been essentially restricted to noble metal supports (Au, Ag and Cu). While the application of semiconductor materials as SERS substrate would enormously widen the range of uses for this technique, the detection sensitivity has been much inferior and the achievable SERS enhancement was rather limited, thereby greatly limiting the practical applications. Here we report the employment of non-stoichiometric tungsten oxide nanostructure, sea urchin-like W18O49 nanowire, as the substrate material, to magnify the substrate-analyte molecule interaction, leading to significant…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 51402204, 51202282, 51372266
• GO
  Government of Jiangsu Province
• NS
  Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province

  Award: BK20130348
• NK
  National Key Research and Development Program of China