Polydopamine-mediated facile Silver grown on ZnO Thin Films as High Performance SERS Substrates for R6G Detection

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a widely known technique that uses plasmonic structures (silver, gold, etc.) to detect low-concentration molecules. However, the limited number of metallic elements with plasmonic properties leads to limitations in their application. The qualitative detection method of SERS holds considerable promise in providing novel platforms for diverse applications, owing to its utilization of hybrid structures. Mussel-inspired polydopamine offers a promising avenue for the fabrication and integration of hybrid structures suitable for the SERS platform. Here, sputtered ZnO thin films were modified with Ag Nanostructures using polydopamine to fabricate a homogeneous Ag@ZnO hybrid high-performance SERS substrate. Ag/ZnO hybrid nanostructures were analyzed by FESEM and XRD to investigate their morphological and structural characterizations. SERS measurements were performed for all silver growth times to understand the effect of the silver growth process and hybrid structure synergy on SERS performance. The Ag@ZnO hybrid structure, cultivated with 24-hour silver growth, exhibited remarkable detectability even at an ultra-low R6G concentration of 10 pM