Rapid fabrication of the Au hexagonal cone arrays for SERS applications

This study performed trace detection using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) on Au hexagonal cone arrays (Au-HCAs). Uniform porous anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) templates were used, and an Ag film with a cone cavity was prepared using a thermal deposition technique. Next, a series of homogeneous Au-HCAs were prepared controllably via electrodeposition growth technology. The prepared Au-HCAs were used as SERS substrates, and according to the experimental results, the optimal electrodeposition time is 600 s. At this time, Au-HCAs had the highest SERS activity. The detection limit of R6G was 10^-9 M, exhibiting high reproducibility and high uniformity at 10^-6 M, indicating that Au-HCAs had good stability. Moreover, a good linear correlation between the Raman intensity and the molecular concentration endowed Au-HCAs with good quantitative analysis ability. Therefore, the Au-HCAs exhibited great potential for qualitative and quantitative detection.