Estimating resonance enhancement of Raman scattering by metal adatom-adsorbate complexes

Publications on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) in metal sols are perused. The discrepancy between extinction spectra for freshly formed sols and the SERS excitation spectra is found to be connected with different temperature modes used in different procedures for obtaining sols, the temperature difference leading to different concentrations of metal adatoms on sol particles. Once the presence of adatoms is accounted for, the nature of “hot” sol particles, which ensure the observation of values of the SERS enhancement coefficient G?10¹⁴?10¹⁵, can be explained and the reasons for the scarcity of such particles can be established. On compact hot sol particles, rigorous calculations of electromagnetic enhancement G _em in most cases yield G _em≤ 10¹⁴. That is why combining the coefficient σ_b of gigantic amplification of background, which is caused by electron RS in metal and which is connected with the existence of adatoms, with the coefficient σ_si of SERS enhancement in a metal-metal adatom-adsorbate adsorption complex gives σ_bσ_si ≥ 10⁸.