Polymer nanofilm mediated photo-assisted growth of gold nanostructures for sensing of drugs

The growing interest in sensing systems based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) motivates the development of versatile and eco-friendly methods for the fabrication of nanostructured metallic surfaces. In this study, we report photo-assisted growth of Au nanostructures (NSs) on a similar to 7 nm thick film that consists of endgrafted poly(2-vinyl pyridine). The nanofilm plays a key role in the photo-assisted growth of Au NSs with high SERS activity. The structure, crystallinity, and morphology of Au NSs were probed by different analytical techniques. The limit of detection under laser excitation of 532 nm for rhodamine 6 G was 10 nM with an enhancement factor of 6.4 x 10(5). The sensing of tamoxifen and sulfamethazine drugs was further performed on the Au NSs, showing the application potential of the presented SERS platform.