Hierarchical Self-Assembly of Cu7Te5 Nanorods into Superstructures with Enhanced SERS Performance

This paper reports a strategy to get self assembly of Cu7Te5 nanorods into hierarchical superstructures: the side-by-side self-assembly of nanorods into microscale one-dimensional (1D) nanowires (primary structure), the side-by side alignments of the 1D nanowires into two-dimensional (2D) nanowire bundles (secondary structure), and the further rolling up of the 2D bundles into three-dimensional (3D) microtubes (tertiary structure). It was found that the oleylamine (OLA)/n-dodecanethiol (DDT) mixture as a binary capping agent was key to produce Cu7Te5 nanorods in the quantum size regime with high monodispersity, and this was a prerequisite for their hierarchical self-assembly based on elaborate control of the solvent evaporation process. The obtained Cu7Te5 microtube superstructures were used as SERS substrate and showed much stronger SERS enhancement than the as-prepared Cu7Te5 nanorods before assembly. This was probably ascribed to the remarkably enhanced local electromagnetic field arising from the plasmon coupling of Cu7Te5 nanorods in the well-assembled superstructures.