Collaborative interaction of gold nanopores and silver nanoparticles in regulating SERS performance

In surface enhancement of Raman scattering (SERS) experiments, the absorption of excitation light effectively enhances the electromagnetic field, creating a strong focusing field that amplifies the Raman scattering signal of the target molecules. A hexagonal arrangement of gold nanopore arrays loaded with silver nanoparticles was prepared using nanosphere lithography (NSL), template-stripping, magnetron sputtering deposition, and heating processes. Such substrate demonstrates excellent uniformity and stability. Moreover, by optimizing the gold nanoholes and silver nanoparticles, we adjusted the position of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) on demand and elucidated its underlying mechanism, enabling it to exhibit strong optical absorption properties for the excitation light at 785 nm. We have tested the SERS spectra of various target molecules, and all of them show good performance, and the enhancement factor (EF) can reach 3.05 × 10 7 . This work studied the effect of optical absorption properties of gold nanopore on SERS property and provided vital support for a comprehensive understanding of the SERS mechanism and significantly expands the structural design of SERS substrates. This technology is expected to play an important role in many fields such as industrial monitoring, environmental monitoring and biomedical diagnosis.