Plasma jet printing of silver nanoparticles on polyester fabric as a surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrate

Plasma printing techniques are being developed as a novel approach for depositing various functional materials. This study indicates direct one-step printing of silver nanoparticles on various flexible substrates introduce. This technique employs silver nitrate solution as the pre-cursor that are injected, in an aerosol state, into a non-thermal plasma jet. The plasma chamber reduces the injected in-flight droplets, producing silver nanoparticles, which are then deposited on polyester fabrics in a controlled fashion. The structure and morphology of Ag-printed fabrics were characterized by field-enhanced scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX). XRD confirmed the face-centered cubic crystalline structure for the printed nanoparticles, whereas FESEM results suggested that the nanoparticles have an almost spherical shape. Various concentrations of Rhodamine B were employed to determine the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) performance of the silver-coated polyester fabric. Elucidating that even in low concentrations of 10 nM the silver-coated fabrics can detect the Rhodamine B molecules. The highest SERS performance was recorded for Ag-printed fabric using a 6 kV plasma voltage. Also, it was demonstrated that the coated fabric has the flexibility for determining the analyte molecules collected through the swabbing process.