Hydrothermally roughened surface-enhanced Raman scattering-active substrates with low background signals for chemical sensing application

A low-cost, environment friendly and easily fabricated SERS-active substrate with low background signals has been developed by hydrothermal treatment of titanium thin films deposited on silicon substrate. Results from the experimental study revealed that Rhodamine 6G can be well resolved using gold-coated hydrothermally roughened TiO ₂ substrates. The effect of surface enhancement by the hydrothermally roughened substrates enables rapid identification of Rhodamine 6G, and the enhancement capability is controllable by tuning the surface roughness of the substrates through varying treatment duration. The hydrothermally treated TiO ₂ substrates also exhibit tunable wettability like that of the untreated ones.