Monodisperse, micrometer-scale, highly crystalline, nanotextured Ag dendrites: rapid, large-scale, wet-chemical synthesis and their application as SERS substrates.

In this letter, we report on our interesting finding that the direct mixing of aqueous AgNO(3) and NH(2)OH solutions at room temperature leads to rapid, high-yield production of monodisperse, micrometer-scale, highly crystalline, nanotextured Ag dendrites. The surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) effect of these Ag dendrites was evaluated by using 4-aminothiophenol (p-ATP) as the Raman probe and the results demonstrate that they exhibit strong SERS effects.