Flexible and electrically conductive composites based on 3D hierarchical silver dendrites

This work presents flexible and highly conductive composites using 3D hierarchical silver dendrites (SDs) as conductive fillers, which demonstrate a low percolation threshold and excellent electromechanical characteristics.

Nanostructured silver dendrites for photon-induced Cysteine dimerization

Under a controlled adsorption environment, L-cysteine molecules can be chemically adsorbed to the dendritic silver (Ag-D) surface by electrochemical methods with different functional groups. It is verified by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy that under alkaline conditions (pH = 13.50), the two functional groups of thiol and acid are simultaneously adsorbed on the surface of Ag-D, while NH2 is far from the surface; under acidic conditions (pH = 1.67), adsorption behavior suggests that both NH3+ and COO− are oriented toward the Ag-D surface, and that SH is far from the surface. The structure of L-cysteine adsorption under acidic conditions can be further verified by the addition of an L-cysteine molecule through light-induced coupling reaction to form cystine. Finally, in-situ two-dimensional Raman scattering spectroscopy confirmed the feasibility and uniformity of the coupling reaction.

Simulation and synthesis of silver dendritic nanostructures for surface-enhanced Raman scattering

Silver dendritic nanostructures (AgD) is investigated for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with simulation and experiments, the simulations showed that there is a significant absorbance over a broad spectrum from the AgD, this indicated that AgD is a good candidate for SERS. The simulations helped to study the parameters of the AgD that affects the SERS and we applied these simulation results for experimental designs, in which our experimental results of synthesis and characterization results of Raman spectrum showed consistence with the simulation results. These simulation results are very helpful in deciding the experimental parameters for efficient and effective synthesizing and reproduction of hierarchical silver dendritic nanostructure. The AgD were produced using displacement redox reaction between AgNO3 solution and Copper foil. We found that the concentration of AgNO3 played major role on the rate of reaction, and the rapid growth of the silver nanostructures was observed as the reaction time increases. The structural and morphological evolution of silver dendrites was examined with Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The Raman enhancement of AgDs was evaluated using Elman's reagent (DTNB) and Rhodamine 6G (R6G). The silver dendrites have great potential for diverse sensing applications ranging from food safety control, environmental monitoring and assessment, forensic investigation, and to medical diagnosis.