SERS efficiencies of micrometric polystyrene beads coated with gold and silver nanoparticles: the effect of nanoparticle size

Rapid advances in nanofabrication techniques of reproducibly manufacturing plasmonic substrates with well-defined nanometric scale features and very large electromagnetic enhancements paved the way for the final translation of the analytical potential of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) to real applications. A vast number of different SERS substrates have been reported in the literature. Among others, discrete particles consisting of an inorganic micrometric or sub-micrometric core homogeneously coated with plasmonic nanoparticles stand out for their ease of fabrication, excellent SERS enhancing properties, long-term optical stability and remarkable experimental flexibility (manipulation, storage etc). In this article, we performed a systematic experimental study of the correlation between the size of quasi-spherical gold and silver nanoparticle and the final optical property of their corresponding assembles onto micrometric polystyrene (PS) beads. The size and composition of nanoparticles play a key role in tuning the SERS efficiency of the hybrid material at a given excitation wavelength. This study provides valuable information for the selection and optimization of the appropriate PS@NPs substrates for the desired applications.