An all-copper plasmonic sandwich system obtained through directly depositing copper NPs on a CVD grown graphene/copper film and its application in SERS. Issue 26 (11th May 2015) - Li, Xuanhua
Abstract : The largest SERS enhancement (10 7 ) has been obtained by tuning the incidence angle in a simple, low-cost, all-copper sandwich system. Abstract : A simple, low-cost, all-copper sandwich system has been obtained through directly depositing Cu nanoparticles (NPs) onto a graphene sheet, which has already been grown on a Cu foil (Cu-NGF). The new design inherits two key advantages: (1) the materials of the NGF coupling system are composed of only cheaper Cu instead of Au and Ag, (2) direct fabrication of the system without transferring graphene will greatly lower the fabrication cost. More importantly, the Cu-NFG system shows a high sensitivity in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with the highest enhancement factor (EF, over 1.89 × 10 7 ) reported to date in Cu plasmonic systems. Experimental and theoretical results reveal that the strong EF is mainly because of the strong near-field coupling between Cu NPs and Cu films at the optimal angle of incidence, opening up a new route for Cu materials in SERS applications.