Eur. Phys. J. B (2017) 90: 216
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2017-80100-2

Regular Article

Synthesis of gold nanostars with fractal structure: application in surface-enhanced Raman scattering

The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, P.R. China

^a e-mail: nanoptzj@163.com

Received: 16 February 2017
Received in final form: 20 July 2017
Published online: 13 November 2017

Abstract

Multi-branched gold nanostars with fractal feature were synthesized using the Triton X-100 participant seed-growth method. By increasing the amount of ascorbic acid, the branch length of gold nanostars could be greatly increased. It has been interesting to find that the secondary growth of new branches takes place from the elementary structure when the aspect ratio of the branches is greater than 8.0 and the corresponding plasmon absorption wavelength is greater than 900 nm. Raman activity of the gold nanostar films has been investigated by using the 4-mercaptobenzoic acid (4-MBA) as Raman active probe. Experimental results show that the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) ability of the gold nanostars could be efficiently improved when the fractal structure appears. The physical mechanism has been attributed to the intense increased secondary branch number and the increased “hot spots”. These unique multi-branched gold nanostars with fractal feature and great SERS activity should have great potential in sensing applications.