Polymer-guided grafting of single W atoms onto titanate nanotubes increases SERS activity in semiconductors

Jinyu Zhou, Xiuling Zha, Siying Ma, Sihui Wu, Chunlan Ma (), Gaoyuan Chen, Zhigang Chen, Taoyang Zhang, Zhiwei Chen, Di Wang, Yuxiang Yan, Yuqing Sun, Hengdong Ren, Hongzhao Sun, Xinglong Wu (), Zhigang Zhao and Shan Cong ()
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Jinyu Zhou: Nanjing University
Xiuling Zha: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Siying Ma: Nanjing University
Sihui Wu: Suzhou University of Science and Technology
Chunlan Ma: Suzhou University of Science and Technology
Gaoyuan Chen: Suzhou University of Science and Technology
Zhigang Chen: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Taoyang Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhiwei Chen: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Di Wang: Nanjing University
Yuxiang Yan: Nanjing University
Yuqing Sun: Nanjing University
Hengdong Ren: Nanjing University
Hongzhao Sun: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xinglong Wu: Nanjing University
Zhigang Zhao: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shan Cong: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Metal single atoms have been demonstrated to induce surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) due to their effectiveness in the modification of electronic structure. However, precisely modulating the relative positions of metal single atoms on sub-nanolattices remains a formidable challenge, which makes SERS studies of metal single atoms dependent on localized environments still lacking. Herein, we rely on polyethylene glycol (PEG) as a soft template to achieve the modulation of the relative positions of W atoms on titanate nanotubes (W-TNTs) and probe the local-environment-dependent SERS induced by metal single atoms based on this technique. We find that the relative position of the W single atoms greatly affects their SERS performance. This phenomenon has been attributed to the difference in charge transfer ability between single W atoms of different configurations, with isolated W atoms inducing a significantly higher density of electronic states near the Fermi energy than associated W atoms, leading to an enhanced polarization of the probe molecule and subsequently a stronger Raman signal. Our findings demonstrate a technique to effectively control the relative positions of single atoms and provide insights into single-atom-induced SERS associated with localized environments, which will facilitate the rational design of SERS substrates based on metal single atoms.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-63224-5

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