Controlled growth of ZnO nanorods on textured silicon wafer and the application for highly effective and recyclable SERS substrate by decorating Ag nanoparticles

•The growth behavior of ZnO nanorods (NRs) is studied on the textured Si wafer.•A new surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate has been achieved by assembling Ag nanoparticles onto the ZnO NRs.•The SERS substrate exhibits good performance in terms of high sensitivity, good reproducibility and recyclability.

Based on the study of growth behavior of ZnO nanorods on the textured Si wafer, a new three-dimensional surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrate has been achieved by assembling Ag nanoparticles onto the ZnO nanorods to form a radial plasmonic nanostructure. It is found that the new substrate exhibits good performance in terms of high sensitivity and good reproducibility for surface-enhanced Raman scattering. The determined enhancement factor is in the order of 107 and the Raman spectra exhibit the remarkable consistency with the deviation below 5.0%. Compared to the substrate fabricated with ZnO nanorod array on the flat Si wafer, the new substrates have the higher utility of excitation light. Meanwhile, the new substrate is demonstrated to be recyclable after the irradiation of ultraviolet light.

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