Revealing the Interplay between Adsorbed Molecular Layers and Gold Nanoparticles by Linear and Nonlinear Optical Properties

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) chemically grafted on substrates are widely used as sensors due to their plasmonic properties. The efficiency and robustness of such sensors strongly depend on the molecular sublayer structure, which influences the distribution of AuNPs, and therefore the plasmonic properties of the layer. Few spectroscopic tools are able to sense the grafting layer both before and after particle deposition. Here, we use sum-frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy to deeply investigate both the grafting layer and the immobilized AuNPs. We combine SFG with reflectance UV–visible spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for 14 nm diameter AuNPs, dispersed on modified silicon surfaces with either amine or mixed amine/thiol terminated layers. SFG spectra show the specific vibrational fingerprint of each supporting layer through the amplitudes of methylene and methyl vibration modes and prove the presence of unreacted ethoxy groups from (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane. We establish a linea...