Effective SERS materials by loading Ag nanoparticles into poly(acrylic acid-stat-acrylamide)-block-polystyrene nano-objects prepared by PISA

Abstract

Spherical nano-objects composed of poly(acrylic acid-stat-acrylamide)-block-polystyrene (P(AA-stat-Am)-b-PS) were prepared via polymerization induced self-assembly (PISA) and used as templates for the synthesis of hybrid [email protected](AA-stat-Am)-b-PS. These well-defined hybrids were used as effective surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) supports for adenine detection as targeting molecule. Due to the presence of acrylamide units, the interactions between carboxyl groups, –COOH and AgNP were tuned, leading to the improvement of SERS effect in comparison to the system based on PAA–b-PS. SERS activity for [email protected](AA56-stat-Am19)-b-PS375 (ratio 1:1) was ~20 times higher (36x104) as compared to the reference system; PAA86-b-PSt380.