LAUSR

Abstract Simple methods capable of preparing high performance SERS substrates are highly desirable. Here, a simple electrochemical approach is developed to prepare silver nanoflowers with outstanding surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) performance. The silver nanoflowers are composed of hundreds of silver nanoleaves. These nanoleaves weaved together to form the silver nanoflowers. Notably, the silver nanoleaves are porous with many nanoscale pores. Numerous SERS “hot spots” exist at the overlapping points of the silver nanoleaves, as well as within the nanoscale pores of the porous silver nanoleaves. As expected, the silver nanoflowers demonstrate a high SERS sensitivity. As low as 1 nM Rhodamine 6G could be detected using the silver nanoflower SERS substrate. Moreover, the standard deviation of the SERS signals is only about 13.5%, underlying a good detection reliability of the silver nanoflower substrate. The high SERS sensitivity and the strong SERS detection reliability make the silver nanoflower SERS substrate have promising application in ultrasensitive detection fields.