Fabrication of nanowire network AAO and its application in SERS

In this paper, nanowire network anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) was fabricated by just adding a simple film-eroding process after the production of porous AAO. After depositing 50 nm of Au onto the surface, nanowire network AAO can be used as ultrasensitive and high reproducibility surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate. The average Raman enhancement factor of the nanowire network AAO SERS substrate can reach 5.93 × 106, which is about 14% larger than that of commercial Klarite® substrates. Simultaneously, the relative standard deviations in the SERS intensities are limited to approximately 7%. All of the results indicate that our large-area low-cost high-performance nanowire structure AAO SERS substrates have a great advantage in chemical/biological sensing applications.