Analyst, 2015, 140, 5190-5197

Peng Jia, Jin Qu, Bing Cao, Yuxuan Liu, Chao Luo, Junhu An, Kai Pan*

We report a chemical deposition of silver nanocrystals (AgNCs) with different size and morphology, such as polyhedra and plates, on the polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofiber mat. High performance surfaceenhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates are achieved. The effect of the experimental parameters, such as temperature, concentration and pH of [Ag(NH3)2]OH aqueous solution, on the morphologies evolution and density of AgNCs are systematically investigated. The results suggest that the optimized nanofiber mat exhibits significant SERS performance with superior stability and reproduction, and the SERS enhancement factor (EF) can reach as high as 108 for 4-mercaptobenzoic acid (4-MBA). The optimized nanofiber mat also shows high SERS activity for p-aminothiophenol (4-ATP) over the whole nanofiber mat demonstrating the feasibility for detection of both ****ytes. The detection limit of 4-MBA and 4-ATP is as low as 10-9M and 10-10M respectively, making the nanofiber mat a promising candidate for SERS detection of chemical pollutants.