Low temperature synthesis of plasmonic molybdenum nitride nanosheets for surface enhanced Raman scattering

Molybdenum nitride (δ–MoN) is an important functional material due to its impressive catalytic, energy storage, and superconducting properties. However, the synthesis of δ–MoN usually requires extremely harsh conditions; thus, the insight into δ−MoN is far behind that of oxides and sulfides of molybdenum. Herein, we report that ultrathin δ−MoN nanosheets are prepared at 270 °C and 12 atm. WN, VN, and TiN nanosheets are also synthesized by this method. The δ−MoN nanosheets show strong surface plasmon resonance, high conductivity, excellent thermal and chemical stability as well as a high photothermal conversion efficiency of 61.1%. As a promising surface enhanced Raman scattering substrate, the δ−MoN nanosheets exhibit a 8.16 × 10(6) enhanced factor and a 10(−10) level detection limit for polychlorophenol.