July 2020: Joint Publication With PSU Faculty Accepted By Journal Of ...

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Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a powerful vibrational spectroscopic technique for trace analysis due to its highly efficient, noninvasive and versatile nature. Two-dimensional titanium carbides (MXenes) have attracted great attention as promising substrates for SERS applications, owing to their metallic nature and high electronic density of states at the Fermi level. However, the underlying SERS mechanism has not been a focus of any investigation.

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of (a, b) HF-etched Ti3AlC2 MAX crystals and (c) delaminated Ti3C2TX MXene powder

Researchers from North Carolina Central University and Pennsylvania State University, reported the first systematic experimental study on the SERS activity of Ti3C2TX nanosheets with thickness ranging from 5 to 120 nm, using methylene blue (MB) as a probe molecule. The excellent Raman enhancement capability of MXene nanosheets has been confirmed as a result of charge transfer interaction between the MXene nanosheet surface and MB molecules, and the mechanism has been explained based on the unified theory of SERS proposed by Lombardi and Birke. Our findings have significant implications for cost and performance optimization in designing MXene-based SERS substrates for next-generation chemical and biological sensing platforms.

Reference: B. Limbu, B. Chitara, M. Y. Garcia Cervantes, Y. Zhou, S. Huang, Y. Tang, F. Yan. Unravelling the thickness dependence and mechanism of surface-enhanced Raman scattering on Ti3C2Tx MXene nanosheets. Journal of Physical Chemistry C. 2020, 124, 17772–17782. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.0c05143

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