Cystine-assisted accumulation of gold nanoparticles on ZnO to construct a sensitive surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy substrate

Recently,various semiconductor/metal composites have been developed to fabricate surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy substrates.However,low metal loading on semiconductors is still a challenge.In this study,cystine was introduced to increase the accumulation of gold nanoparticles on zinc oxide,owing to the biomineralization property of cystine.Morphological analysis revealed that the obtained ZnO/Au/cystine composite not only had a higher metal loading but also formed a porous structure,which is beneficial for Raman performance.Compared with ZnO/Au,the ZnO/Au/cystine substrate displayed a 40-fold enhancement in the Raman signal and a lower limit of detection(10-11 mol·L-1) in the detection of rhodamine 6G.Moreover,the substrate has favorable homogeneity and stability.Finally,ZnO/Au/cystine displayed excellent performance toward crystal violet and methylene blue in a test based on river water samples.This study provided a promising method to fabricate sensitive semiconductor/noble metal-based surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy substrates for Raman detection.