Strategy for obtaining improved surface-enhanced Raman scattering by combining electrochemical and plasmas technologies

In this work, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-active gold substrates were first developed by combining the technologies of oxidation-reduction cycles (ORCs) and plasmas treatments in roughening metal substrates. First, a gold substrate was treated by argon plasmas. Then the treated gold substrate was further roughened by triangular-wave ORCs in an aqueous solution containing 0.1 M HCl. Encouragingly, the SERS of Rhodamine 6G (R6G) adsorbed on this roughened gold substrate modified by argon plasmas pretreatment exhibits a higher intensity by 10-fold of magnitude and a better resolution, as compared with the SERS of R6G adsorbed on an unmodified roughened gold substrate. Meanwhile, the probing concentration of R6G adsorbed on the modified substrate can be reduced by one order. It was also found that the pretreatment of argon plasmas demonstrates a positive effect on the (2 2 0) face of Au partly changing into the (1 1 1) face with the lowest surface energy after the ORCs roughening, which is contributive to the improved SERS observed.