Micrometer-sized gold nanoplates: starch-mediated photochemical reduction synthesis and possibility of application to tip-enhanced Raman scattering (TERS)

In this report, we propose a novel starch-mediated photochemical reduction method for synthesizing micrometer-sized gold nanoplates and the possibility of using them as a tip-enhanced Raman scattering (TERS) substrate. To reduce gold ions, a starch chain firstly forms a complex with AuCl4−, and the gold ion is subsequently reduced by receiving an electron from a chloride ion and generating a chloride radical when the [AuCl4−–starch] complex is irradiated by sunlight. Due to the slow reaction rate and the capability of starch as a template, gold structure can thermodynamically grow along the (111) facet which is the lowest energy facet of the gold face-centered cubic (fcc) crystal. This method can provide various shapes of gold plates such as triangle, truncated triangle, hexagon, polygon, etc. The plate size can be controlled in the range from a few micrometers to more than one hundred micrometers by increasing the acidity of solution while the plate thickness is less than 100 nm. Potential application of the gold plates as TERS substrates is demonstrated by collecting Raman signals while approaching a silver-coated tungsten tip to the surface of the micrometer-sized gold nanoplate covered by crystal violet (CV) molecules. The results show that less than one hundred CV molecules can be detected in our study.