A surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-active optical fiber sensor based on a three-dimensional sensing layer

摘要

Abstract To fabricate a new surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-active optical fiber sensor, the design and preparation of SERS-active sensing layer is one of important topics. In this study, we fabricated a highly sensitive three-dimensional (3D) SERS-active sensing layer on the optical fiber terminal via in situ polymerizing a porous polymer material on a flat optical fiber terminal through thermal-induced process, following with the photochemical silver nanoparticles growth. The polymerized polymer formed a 3D porous structure with the pore size of 0.29–0.81 μm, which were afterward decorated with abundant silver nanoparticles with the size of about 100 nm, allowing for higher {SERS} enhancement. This SERS-active optical fiber sensor was applied for the determination of 4-mercaptopyridine, crystal violet and maleic acid The enhancement factor of this {SERS} sensing layer can be reached as about 108. The optical fiber sensor with high sensitive SERS-active porous polymer is expected for online analysis and environment detection.