Evaluation of an Electrodeposited Bimetallic Cu/Ag Nanostructured Screen Printed Electrode for Electrochemical Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (EC-SERS) Investigations

Abstract

The field of plasmonics has experienced rapid growth over the past decade with a host of emerging applications including single molecule sensing and plasmon-assisted catalysis. The vast majority of these applications use either silver or gold as the plasmonic metal, which are both high cost and face earth-abundance limitations in the next 100 years. Recent efforts have focused on taking advantage of the plasmonic properties of copper, a more abundant and low cost coinage metal as a sustainable route for plasmonic applications. In particular, there has been great interest in developing copper substrates capable of reliable and efficient enhancement of Raman signals for use in surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) sensing. Herein we describe a sequential electrodeposition technique whereby highly functional and robust Cu/Ag bimetallic SERS-active screen printed electrodes can be produced rapidly and at low cost, which display excellent plasmonic performance and are capable of supporting surface-plasmon assisted catalysis (SPAC). This modified screen printed electrode allows for the in situ spectroelectrochemical investigation of surface redox processes using a sustainable alternative to traditional monometallic electrodes.