Polydopamine-assisted in situ growth of three-dimensional ZnO/Ag nanocomposites on PET films for SERS and catalytic properties

Abstract Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy as an effective method in sensitive detection applications has attracted more and more attentions recently. In this work, polydopamine was taken to achieve the modification of PET film surface for in-situ growth of three-dimensional (3D) ZnO/Ag nanocomposites. Ag nanoparticles on cluster-like ZnO nanorods surface were applied as Raman hot spots for target molecules detection. SEM, XPS, and XRD were used to characterize the microstructures and morphologies of 3D SERS substrates. pATP molecules were selected to measure the sensitivity, uniformity, and durability, the surface-enhanced enhancement mechanism of Raman scattering was analyzed by finite difference time domain (FDDT) simulation method. Malachite green (MG) was further used as the demonstrative pesticide residue, and the catalytic activity was studied by the deoxidization of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP). This work has indicated that SERS substrates exhibited the advantages of facile fabrication process, low cost, high sensitivity, good stability and excellent uniformity, which can be used for the rapid Raman enhanced spectroscopy analysis of environmental pollutants.