Surface-Enhanced Raman scattering of methylene blue on titanium nitride nanoparticles synthesized by laser ablation in organic solvents

Marzieh Esmaeilzadeh; Hossein Dizajghorbani-Aghdam; Rasoul Malekfar

doi:10.1016/j.saa.2021.119721

Surface-Enhanced Raman scattering of methylene blue on titanium nitride nanoparticles synthesized by laser ablation in organic solvents

Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2021 Aug 5:257:119721. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2021.119721. Epub 2021 Mar 19.

Authors

Marzieh Esmaeilzadeh¹, Hossein Dizajghorbani-Aghdam², Rasoul Malekfar³

Affiliations

¹ Atomic and Molecular Physics Group, Department of Physics, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, P.O. Box 14115-175, Islamic Republic of Iran. Electronic address: marzieh.esmaeilzadeh1993@gmail.com.
² Atomic and Molecular Physics Group, Department of Physics, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, P.O. Box 14115-175, Islamic Republic of Iran. Electronic address: h.dizajghorbani@modares.ac.ir.
³ Atomic and Molecular Physics Group, Department of Physics, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, P.O. Box 14115-175, Islamic Republic of Iran. Electronic address: Malekfar@Modares.ac.ir.

PMID: 33845389
DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2021.119721

Abstract

Suspensions of titanium nitride (TiN) nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared using nanosecond Ce:Nd:YAG pulsed laser ablation (λ = 1064 nm) of a TiN target immersed in various solvents such as Toluene (C₆H₅CH₃), Acetonitrile (CH₃CN), and N, N-dimethylformamide (C₃H₇NO). The synthesized NPs were characterized by applying a range of spectroscopic, structural, and compositional analysis techniques. The obtained TiN NPs in N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF-TiN NPs) solvent showed strong optical absorption in the near-infrared (NIR) range; Whereas, the obtained TiN NPs in toluene (T-TiN NPs) and acetonitrile (AN-TiN NPs) solvents were covered with a carbon matrix layer that quenched their surface plasmon resonance (SPR). The carbon matrix on the NPs was removed by thermal oxidation to obtain carbon-free TiN NPs. All the prepared carbon-free TiN NPs were employed as substrates for the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy of methylene blue (MB) molecules as a probe molecule adsorbed on the surface. All substrates indicated nearly the same order of enhancement factors (EFs) (~10³) for MB.

Keywords: Laser ablation in liquid; Methylene blue (MB); Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS); Titanium nitride nanoparticles (TiN).