Effective SERS materials by loading Ag nanoparticles into poly(acrylic acid-stat-acrylamide)-block-polystyrene nano-objects prepared by PISA

Abstract Spherical nano-objects composed of poly(acrylic acid-stat-acrylamide)-block-polystyrene (P(AA-stat-Am)-b-PS) were prepared via polymerization induced self-assembly (PISA) and used as templates for the synthesis of hybrid Ag@P(AA-stat-Am)-b-PS. These well-defined hybrids were used as effective surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) supports for adenine detection as targeting molecule. Due to the presence of acrylamide units, the interactions between carboxyl goups, -COOH and AgNP were tuned, leading to the improvement of SERS effect in comparison to the system based on PAA–b-PS. SERS activity for Ag@P(AA56-stat-Am19)-b-PS375 (ratio 1:1) was ∼20 times higher (36·104) as compared to the reference system; PAA86-b-PSt380.