Gold electrode, SERS effect

The application of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) for monitoring redox and other processes at metal-solution interfaces is illustrated by means of some recent results obtained in our laboratory. The detection of adsorbed species present at outer- as well as inner-sphere reaction sites is noted. The influence of surface interaction effects on the SER spectra of adsorbed redox couples is discussed with a view towards utilizing the frequency-potential dependence of oxidation-state sensitive vibrational modes as a criterion of reactant-surface electronic coupling effects. Illustrative data are presented for Ru(NH3)63+/2+ adsorbed electrostatically to chloride-coated silver, and Fe(CN)63 /" bound to gold electrodes the latter couple appears to be valence delocalized under some conditions. The use of coupled SERS-rotating disk voltammetry measurements to examine the kinetics and mechanisms of irreversible and multistep electrochemical reactions is also discussed. Examples given are the outer- and inner-sphere one-electron reductions of Co(III) and Cr(III) complexes at silver, and the oxidation of carbon monoxide and iodide at gold electrodes. 

Since colloidal particles of silver and gold also give large SERS effects, it is useful to consider these as disconnected microelectrodes. Controlled variations in the potential at the interface between silver sol particles and electrolyte solution have been achieved by adding the Eu3+/Eu2+ redox system and varying the concentration ratio [22]. From measurements of SER spectra of pyridine adsorbed on the silver sol, the potential-dependent effects have been found to be identical with those given by bulk silver electrodes. These experiments also demonstrated that the intensity ratio of the pyridine Raman bands at ca. 1010 and 1040 cm-1 may be used as a simple but effective measure of sin-face potential for colloidal metals. 

In most work on electrochemical systems, use is made of two effects that greatly enhance the Raman signals. One is resonance Raman spectroscopy (RRS), wherein the excitation wavelength corresponds to an electronic transition in an adsorbed molecule on an electrode surface. The other effect is surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), which occurs on certain surfaces, such as electrochemically roughened silver and gold. This effect, discovered by Fleischmann et al. (1974), yields enhancements of 10 to 10 . The vast majority of publications on Raman studies of electrochemical systems use SERS. The limitations of SERS are that it occurs on only a few metals and the mechanism of the enhancement is not understood. There is speculation that only a small part of the surface is involved in the effect. There is a very good review of SERS (Pemberton, 1991). 

A small number of ORCs is usually sufficient to achieve the maximum enhancement factors for silver electrodes. Indeed, repeated cycling beyond four or five times has been observed to have a detrimental effect on the SERS enhancement. A rather different situation is found for gold, however. It has... 

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