Surface-enhanced fluorescence and application study based on Ag-wheat leaves

Wheat leaves with natural microstructures as substrates were covered by the silver nanoislands by magnetron to prepare a low-cost, environment-friendly and mass production surface-enhanced fluorescence (SEF) substrate (Ag-WL substrate). The best SEF substrate was selected by repeatly certifying the fluorescence intensity of 10−5 M Rhodamine B (RB) and 10−5 M Rhodamine 6G (R6G) aqueous solutions. The abundant semi-spherical protrusions and flake-like structures on the surface of the Ag-WL substrate produce high-density hot spots, which provides a new and simple idea for the preparation of biomimetic materials. The results of 3D finite-different time-domain (FDTD) simulation show that the nanoisland gap of semi-spherical protrusions and flake-like structures has produced rich hotspots. By adjusting the time of magnetron sputtering, the enhancement factor (EF) was as high as 839 times, relative standard deviation (RSD) reached as low as 10.7%, and the substrate was very stable and repeatable, which shows that Ag-WL substrate is trustworthy. Moreover, semi-spherical protrusions provide stronger surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) effects compared to flake-like structure. What is more surprising is that the detection limit of the substrate for toxic substance crystal violet (CV) is as low as 10−10 M.