10.1021/acs.chemmater.6b02637.s001 Yong Yan Yong Yan Andreea Ioana Radu Andreea Ioana Radu Wenye Rao Wenye Rao Hongmei Wang Hongmei Wang Ge Chen Ge Chen Karina Weber Karina Weber Dong Wang Dong Wang Dana Cialla-May Dana Cialla-May Jürgen Popp Jürgen Popp Peter Schaaf Peter Schaaf Mesoscopically Bi-continuous Ag–Au Hybrid Nanosponges with Tunable Plasmon Resonances as Bottom-Up Substrates for Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy American Chemical Society 2016 plasmon peaks SERS BY surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy NS cyclic electroless deposition Tunable Plasmon Resonances plasmonic properties mesoscaled ligament size Ag components volume porosity decreases 2016-10-04 00:00:00 Journal contribution https://acs.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Mesoscopically_Bi-continuous_Ag_Au_Hybrid_Nanosponges_with_Tunable_Plasmon_Resonances_as_Bottom-Up_Substrates_for_Surface-Enhanced_Raman_Spectroscopy/4039818 Ag–Au hybrid nanosponges (NSs) with controlled porosity and composition ratio were fabricated through the cyclic electroless deposition of Ag into the porous Au NSs. In the Ag–Au hybrid NSs, both Au and Ag components with mesoscaled ligament size are bicontinuously percolated over the entire structure. The plasmonic properties of the Ag–Au hybrid NSs differ clearly from those of the Au NSs and the solid Au–Ag alloy nanoparticles, and two distinct plasmon peaks were observed which can be attributed to Au and Ag components, respectively. The plasmonic properties can be well tuned by controlling the cycles of Ag deposition. Both plasmon peaks attributed to Au and Ag components blue shift with increasing amount of Ag. The volume porosity decreases upon increasing amount of deposited Ag. The results of the theoretical calculations reveal that the deceasing porosity could play an important role in the blue shift. Moreover, the Ag–Au hybrid NSs exhibit higher sensitivity in surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) detection of butter yellow (BY) than the Au NSs due to the presence of Ag and of the porous structure. Also, the as-prepared structures present a built-in preference for hydrophobic analytes.