Flexible carbon fiber cloth decorated by Ag nanoparticles for high Raman enhancement

We reported an efficient fabrication strategy for a three-dimensional structure based on large-area flexible carbon fiber cloth decorated by Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs-CFC). AgNPs with different sizes and morphologies were assembled on the surface of the CFC via a vacuum thermal evaporation and high-temperature annealing method. Samples with Ag film thickness of 5 nm, 10 nm, 15 nm, 20 nm, 30 nm and 50 nm were prepared and analyzed. The forming mechanism of AgNPs on the surface of CFC was studied in detail. Finite element numerical simulations with COMSOL Multiphysics were carried on to show the electronic field distributions of different samples based on SEM images. Raman measurements with Rhodamine 6G (R6G) molecules as analytes indicated that the analytical enhancement factor (AEF) reaches to 2.4×1012 and a detection limit is as low as 1.0×10−14 mol/L.