Direct growth of silver nanostructures on zinc substrate by a modified galvanic displacement reaction

Abstract This paper reports a modified galvanic displacement approach for the synthesis of Ag nanostructures with different morphologies. During the process, AgNO 3 as starting material is reduced using zinc foil and this is followed by suitable thermal treatment. The reaction time, concentration of the AgNO 3 aqueous solutions and thermal treatment temperature directly influence the morphologies of Ag nanostructures. X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), and UV–visible spectra are used to characterize the products obtained. Furthermore, a representative experiment using rhodamine (R6G) as the probe molecule confirms that the Ag nanostructure shows strong surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activity.