For improving signals, reproducibility, and stabilities of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), numerous technologies have recently been reported in the literature. However, the fabrication processes are usually complicated. It is well-known that nanoparticles (NPs) of Au and SiO
2 are SERS active and inactive materials, respectively. In this work, a simple synthesis route based on sonoelectrochemical pulse deposition (SEPD) methods has been developed to synthesize effectively SERS-active Au/SiO
2 nanocomposites (NCs) with an enhancement factor of 5.4 脳 10
8. Experimental results indicate that pH value of solution and addition of SiO
2 NPs before and after oxidation鈥搑eduction cycles (ORCs) can significantly influence the corresponding SERS activities. Encouragingly, the SERS of Rhodamine 6G (R6G) adsorbed on the developed Au/SiO
2 NCs exhibits a higher intensity by more than 1 order of magnitude, as compared with that of R6G adsorbed on Au NPs synthesized using the same method. Moreover, this improved SERS activity is success
fully verified from the mechanisms of electromagnetic (EM) and chemical (CHEM) enhancements.
Keywords:
surface-enhanced Raman scattering; mechanisms; electrochemical method; Au/SiO2 nanocomposites; sonoelectrochemical methods