Tungsten-doped molybdenum disulfide as a high-performance substrate for surface-enhanced Raman scattering

Research on non-noble metal SERS platforms has drawn widespread focus in the past decade. Molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) has emerged as a highly potential candidate for non-noble metal SERS platforms, owing to its tunable bandgap and abundant active sites. Nevertheless, pristine MoS 2 exhibits weak SERS activity, limiting its practical applications. In this study, tungsten atoms were doped into MoS 2 by a one-step hydrothermal approach to significantly boost MoS 2 ’s capability for SERS applications. The following factors account for the enhanced SERS activity of tungsten-doped MoS 2 (W-MoS 2 ): W doping can enhance the adsorption between MoS 2 and analyte molecules, and facilitate charge transfer between them. Additionally, W doping is capable of regulating the band structure of MoS 2 , thereby enhancing the charge transfer efficiency. Experimental results show that the W-MoS 2 SERS substrate has better detection performance compared with the pure MoS 2 SERS substrate. For methylene blue (MB), the SERS enhancement factor (EF) of the W-MoS 2 substrate was calculated as 1.095 × 10 6 , and its detection limit was achieved at 10 −7 M. Additionally, the W-MoS 2 platform demonstrates high homogeneity and stability. This work offers a novel perspective on the rational synthesis of transition-metal dichalcogenide materials exhibiting high SERS performance.