Direct amination of hydrogen-terminated boron doped diamond surfaces

This paper reports on direct amination of hydrogen-terminated polycrystalline boron doped electrode. The technique consists of NH3 plasma treatment of hydrogenated diamond substrate to generate surface terminal amino groups. The aminated diamond surface was further investigated for its ability to bind gold nanoparticles. Homogeneous and well-distributed gold nanoparticles were obtained by simple exposure of the amine-terminated surface to an aqueous solution of gold colloid. The resulting surfaces were characterized using X-ray spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and cyclic voltammetry (CV). The presence of gold nanoparticles led to more reversible electron transfer process on the modified electrode.