A green chemistry synthesis of AG nanoparticles and their concentrated distribution on PDMS elastomer film for more sensitive SERS detection

This paper reports a simple and convenient method to fabricate a surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrate. It includes a green chemistry synthesis of Ag nanoparticles(NPs) and a process of coating a monolayer of the Ag NPs on a polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS) elastomer film. Ultra-low concentration of Ag + (10 −8 M) was used in Tollens method to synthesis monodisperse and relatively uniform Ag NPs. With recovery of the stretched PDMS film, the distribution of Ag NPs gets concentrated, resulting in an improvement of SERS detection sensitivity. Due to the transparent and flexible property of this highly sensitive SERS substrate, it exhibits great potential in in-situ detection of solid or irregular objects.