Dendritic Silver Microstructures as Highly Sensitive SERS Platform for the Detection of Trace Urea

Abstract

Abstract In this communication, Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) coupled with Ag dendrites has been firstly used for the detection of limited urea. Dendritic silver microparticles are immobilized on indium doped tin oxide (ITO) surface via replacement reaction, and the formation mechanism could be attributed to electroless deposition (ELD) and diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA), respectively. The plot of the average Raman intensity measured at 1004cm−1 as a function of urea concentration with R2 value of 0.999 indicates silver dendrites exhibit a satisfactory and consistent performance with an analytical urea enhancement. The limit of detection for urea could reach the physiological range of urea.