Facile Synthesis of Ag Nanodendrites Decorated with Bimetallic Nanoparticles for Enhanced SERS Applications

In this work, silver nanodendrites decorated with bimetallic nanoparticles (Au-Pd, Au-Co, Au-Ni) have been synthesized through the double electrodeposition technique in a simple, fast and reproducible way. With this route, by varying the parameters of time and current density on Al foil, substrates based on Ag nanodendrites have been obtained. Amazingly, SERS analysis show that nanodendrites decorated with bimetallic Au-Pd nanoparticles are able to detect rhodamine 6G (R6G) at concentrations as low as 1 × 10–9 mol·L−1 with analytical enhancement factor (AEF) of 105. This result indicates that Ag nanodendrites decorated with bimetallic nanoparticles based substrates present extraordinary potential as SERS material even at very low concentrations. Likewise, it demonstrates the versatility of the electrodeposition method as a powerful and low cost method for obtaining novel materials with high sensitivity and reproducibility for molecule detection applications.