Vanadium dioxide nanostructures with remarkable surface-enhanced Raman scattering activity

Abstract

Structure and size control are always considered to be effective routes to enhance the sensitivity of materials. Herein, rough VO₂ (D) nanostars and nanospheres with highly dense and rough surfaces were synthesized. Accompanied by the properties inherited from the rough VO₂ nanospheres, i.e., high adsorption and strong plasma resonance, these VO₂ (D) nanospheres exhibit highly sensitive activity as a surface enhanced Raman spectrum substrate. The detection limit of Rhodamine 6G on this semiconductor SERS substrate is as low as 10⁻⁹ M.