Cu@Au self-assembled nanoparticles as SERS-active substrates for (bio)molecular sensing

Gema Cabello* (Corresponding Author), Kenneth C. Nwoko, José F. Marco, María Sánchez-Arenillas, Ana María Méndez-Torres, Jorg Feldmann, Claudia Yáñez, Tim A.D. Smith* (Corresponding Author)

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Cu 0 (core)-Au 0 (shell) (Cu@Au) bimetallic nanoparticles (NPs) synthesized under microwave-assisted heating were interrogated for surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-active substrates. NPs characterization, by XRD, XPS and UV/vis spectroscopy, showed the formation of self-assembled particles with the occurrence of electron transfer from Cu to Au and the absence of Cu x O. TEM and AF4 demonstrated NPs with a mean diameter of 4.7 nm. Despite the low LSPR shown by small nanoparticles (<10 nm diameter), our Cu@Au NPs showed enhanced SERS effect, demonstrated by the calculated scattering signal enhancement factor (3 × 10 5 ), which may be related to electromagnetic coupling. Selected examples of analytes of interest, including some biomolecules, were studied to demonstrate the versatility of our Cu@Au NPs as SERS-active substrates.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)184-192
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of Alloys and Compounds
Volume791
Early online date20 Mar 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Jun 2019

Bibliographical note

Funded by Chief Scientists Office (TCS/16/07), Tenovus Scotland (G15-03) and the University of Aberdeen Development Trust. KCN gratefully acknowledges the University of Aberdeen for the Elphinstone PhD scholarship (RG13451-10) and to Postnova Analytics UK for the loan of the AF4 system together with training, support, and advice on the technique. AM Mendez gratefully acknowledges CONICYT (National Commission of Scientific and Technological Research, Chile) for scholarship (21160174). Microscopy was performed in the Microscopy and Histology Core Facility at the University of Aberdeen. GC gratefully acknowledges the advice of Dr Shuiyu Lu (NIH, Maryland) in relation to the use of the MW reactor and Dr R.A Davoglio for useful discussion and suggestions.

Keywords

  • Bimetallic nanoparticles
  • Biochemical sensing
  • Core-shell
  • Microwave-assisted heating
  • SERS substrate
  • GOLD NANOPARTICLES
  • PROPANIL
  • COPPER NANOPARTICLES
  • SILVER
  • SIZE
  • OPTICAL-PROPERTIES
  • ALLOY NANOPARTICLES
  • ENHANCED RAMAN-SCATTERING
  • IDENTIFICATION
  • SPECTROSCOPY

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