Gold nanoparticles decorated 2D-WSe2 as a SERS substrate

[Display omitted] •Developing well-defined SERS substrates is attractive for many areas of research.•We report the utility of the Au NPs/WSe2 structure as an efficient SERS substrate.•Here, a highly fluorescent dye (Rhodamine 6G, R6G) has been employed as a probe.•The substrate displays promising detection ability and signal reproducibility. Developing well-defined surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-active substrates with superior performance is potentially attractive for many areas of research such as new generation sensing and analysis. Here, a nanohybrid SERS platform has been developed by decorating two-dimensional (2D) tungsten diselenide (WSe2) flakes with zero-dimensional (0D) plasmonic gold nanoparticles (Au NPs). The morphology studies showed that under optimal conditions densely populated Au NPs were formed on the WSe2 surface. Here, we report the utility of the Au NPs/WSe2 nanohybrid structure as an efficient SERS substrate by performing concentration-dependent SERS measurements of a highly fluorescent molecule (Rhodamine 6G, R6G). The hybrid substrate displays promising SERS activity with the detection limit as low as 1 × 10–9 M, which is several orders of magnitude higher than the bare WSe2 on its own (10-3 M). The substrate also exhibits reliable signal stability and reproducibility. These results indicate that the nanohybrid structure has great potential in SERS applications.