Microwave-assisted green synthesis of Ag/reduced graphene oxide nanocomposite as a surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrate with high uniformity

A nanocomposite of silver nanoparticles/reduced graphene oxide (Ag/rGO) has been fabricated as a surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate owing to the large surface area and two-dimensional nanosheet structure of rGO. A facile and rapid microwave-assisted green route has been used for the formation of Ag nanoparticles and the reduction of graphene oxide simultaneously with L-arginine as the reducing agent. By increasing the cycle number of microwave irradiation from 1 and 4 to 8, the mean diameters of Ag nanoparticles deposited on the surface of rGO increased from 10.3 ± 4.6 and 21.4 ± 10.5 to 41.1 ± 12.6 nm. The SERS performance of Ag/rGO nanocomposite was examined using the common Raman reporter molecule 4-aminothiophenol (4-ATP). It was found that the Raman intensity of 4-ATP could be significantly enhanced by increasing the size and content of silver nanoparticles deposited on rGO. Although the Raman intensities of D-band and G-band of rGO were also enhanced simultaneously by the deposited Ag nanoparticles which limited the further improvement of SERS detection sensitivity, the detectable concentration of 4-ATP with Ag/rGO nanocomposite as the SERS substrate still could be lowered to be 10⁻¹⁰ M and the enhancement factor could be increased to 1.27 × 10¹⁰. Furthermore, it was also achievable to lower the relative standard deviation (RSD) values of the Raman intensities to below 5%. This revealed that the Ag/rGO nanocomposite obtained in this work could be used as a SERS substrate with high sensitivity and homogeneity.