Spontaneous Formation of Fractal Aggregates of Au Nanoparticles in Epoxy-Siloxane Films and Their Application as Substrates for NIR Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

We present a facile, inexpensive route to free-standing, thermo-mechanically robust and flexible epoxy-siloxane substrates embedded with fractal aggregates of Au nanoparticles, and demonstrate their efficiency as substrates for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) at NIR wavelengths. The metallodielectric films are prepared by generating Au nanoparticles through the in-situ reduction of gold (III) chloride trihydrate in epoxypropoxypropyl …