Towards the reproducible fabrication of homogeneous SERS substrates by Langmuir-Schaefer technique: A low cost and scalable approach for practical SERS based sensing applications

[Display omitted] •Simple, reproducible and cost-effective fabrication of SERS substrates.•Octadecanethiol-capped Au NPs deposited using the Langmuir-Schaefer technique.•Homogenous coatings with a uniformly distributed SERS response over cm scale area.•Affordable and endurable SERS devices for routine high throughput analysis. The development of homogeneous, endurable and low cost SERS (Surface Enhancement Raman Spectroscopy) substrates is becoming of outmost importance due to growing interest in SERS technique for analytical applications. Here, we use the Langmuir-Schaefer technique to produce, as demonstrated by Atomic Force Microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy, homogeneous tightly-packed films of 27 nm in diameter octadecylthiolate capped gold nanoparticles in a reproducible and simple manner. The fabricated Au-based SERS substrates result in an analytical enhancement factor (AEF) of 4.3 × 108 and enable the detection of Rhodamine 6G in a 10−11 M aqueous solution, with remarkable spatial uniformity of the SERS response over a scanned area of 0.4 cm2. In addition, the developed procedure is highly reproducible from batch to batch with a standard deviation below 10% in the SERS signal. Finally, these substrates exhibit durable SERS properties, i.e. experimentally validated 16 months after its fabrication.