A manganese dioxide-silver nanostructure-based SERS nanoplatform for ultrasensitive tricyclazole detection in rice samples: effects of semiconductor morphology on charge transfer efficiency and SERS analytical performance.

Taking advantage of metal-semiconductor junctions, functional nanocomposites have been designed and developed as active substrates for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensing systems. In this work, we prepared three types of nanocomposites based on manganese oxide (MnO) nanostructures and electrochemically synthesized silver nanoparticles (e-AgNPs), which differed according to the morphologies of MnO. The SERS performance of MnO nanosheet/e-Ag (MnO-s/e-Ag), MnO nanorod/e-Ag (MnO-r/e-Ag), and MnO nanowire/e-Ag (MnO-w/e-Ag) was then evaluated using tricyclazole (TCZ), a commonly used pesticide, as an analyte. Compared to the others, MnO-s/e-Ag exhibited the most remarkable SERS enhancement. Thanks to its large surface area and ability to accept/donate the electrons of the semiconductor, MnO-s acted as a bridge to improve the charge transfer efficiency from e-Ag to TCZ. In addition, the MnO content of the nanocomposites was also considered to optimize the SERS sensing performance. With the optimal MnO content of 25 wt%, MnO-s/e-Ag could achieve the best SERS performance, allowing the detection of TCZ at concentrations down to 6 × 10 M in standard solutions and 10 M in real rice samples.