Significant Discovery by AGU Materials Science Doctoral Students

Doctoral Students Research Assistant Mustafa Erkartal and Mehmet Özdemir from Abdullah Gül University (AGU) Materials Science and Nanotechnology Engineering and Dr. Mehmet Yılmaz from Gazi University Department of Chemistry developed a flexible and high-performance Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) in micro- and nano structure.

SERS is a significant spectroscopy technique, which allows identification of even a single molecule and its examination and has a wide array of use from identifying molecules causing diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, detecting chemical weapons to the restoration of works of art.

In the project run jointly by AGU Faculty Member Assoc. Prof. Hakan Usta and Assoc. Prof. Gökhan Demirel from Gazi University Department of Chemistry, an organic-metal hybrid SERS platform has been created in micro-and-nano structures over a flexible aluminum foil using such a simple technique as electrospraying.

For the study to be published in the "ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces", a leading journal in the field of materials science published by the American Chemical Society, Assoc. Prof. Tamer Uyar from Bilkent University, a prominent figure on the subject of electro-spinning/spraying, said that producing high-performance SERS platforms in 3D micro/nano morphology from small molecules using the technique of electrospraying may pioneer significant studies in the field and that the fact that these platforms have the potential of being cheap and flexible is very important.

Prof. Usta and Prof. Demirel continue their research on the production of high-performance SERS substrates based on micro/nano fabrication in their research group.