Graphene and Phthalocyanine Heterostructures for SERS and Gas Sensing Applications

Graphene and metal Phthalocyanine (FLG-MPc) have been reported as a good candidate for Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) and Gas sensing applications due to the features that this heterostructures shows. SERS is a sensitive spectroscopic technique for microanalysis and trace species detection of bio or chemical agents in small concentration. One of the exciting applications is the selective detection of the glycated hemoglobin and glycated albumin in the blood of humans. Also, the detection of viruses, whole cells, absorption of proteins and environmental monitoring are other uses of SERS. In this work, FLG is grown using hot filament chemical vapor deposition technique (HF-CVD) using Cu and sputtered quartz copper as a substrate. The source of carbon used is methane gas. After growth, graphene is transferred to SiO and characterize using Raman Spectroscopy. Then, copper-phthalocyanine (CuPc) and fluorinated cobalt phthalocyanine (F16CoPc) is grown on top of graphene using a tube furnace CVD method. The idea is to enhance the properties of MPc for the detection of the gases NH3, NO2 and H2S, as well as to use the heterostructure for SERS applications.