Date of Award

8-2012

Degree Name

Master of Science in Engineering

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

Dr. Massood Z. Atashbar

Second Advisor

Dr. Bradley Bazuin

Third Advisor

Dr. Margaret Joyce

Keywords

SERS, heavy metal, printed, nanoparticles, substrate

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

A novel surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrate was successfully fabricated on a silicon wafer using inkjet printing and on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) using gravure printing. Silver (Ag) nanoparticle (NP) based ink, was used for roughening of the surface of silicon and PET. A thickness of 400 nm was measured for the printed Ag NP printed film on silicon and the thickness of the single and double layered films on PET were measured as 340 nm and 680 nm, respectively by using vertical scanning interferometry. The Ag NP printed SERS substrate was tested for application with heavy metal compounds like cadmium sulfide (CdS), zinc oxide (ZnO) and mercury sulfide (HgS). An amplification of the SERS intensity by up to 5 orders of magnitude was observed for all test samples, due to the presence of hotspots between the metal nanoparticle aggregates. The responses demonstrated the feasibility of the novel SERS substrate to be used in applications for detection of heavy metal compounds.

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