Metal-graphene nanostructures for SEIRA spectroscopy

Infrared spectroscopy is widely used technique for observing bioorganic materials, but sometimes scientist have to work with small amount of investigated materials and infrared light interacts poorly with nanometric size molecules. Taking into account unique electro-optical properties of graphene and metal we demonstrated possibility to use metal-graphene nanostructures for label-free detection of thymine. It was shown that IR spectra of thymine adsorbed on the composite nanostructures, such as Au "nanostars" with graphene, is more enhanced than whenthese nanoparticles are used without graphene. The enhancement in IR absorption for complex thymine/Au/graphene depends on size of Au nanoparticlesand thymine\u27s molecular group