Cellulose nanofibre textured SERS substrate

Abstract Poor reproducibility limits the wide uptake of low-cost surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrates. This study reports a relatively low-cost and reproducible cellulose nanofibre (CNF) textured SERS substrate. Utilizing a layer of CNFs deposited onto glass slides, nanoscale roughness was achieved, which facilitated effective aggregation of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) to form a novel CNF textured SERS substrate. This substrate meets the critical roughness requirements to control the distribution of AuNPs to provide ‘hot spots’ for SERS detection, offering significant signal enhancement. The reproducibility and accuracy of low-cost cellulosic SERS substrates were significantly improved on a model SERS molecule of 4-aminothiophenol.