Ratio of the surface-enhanced anti-Stokes scattering to the surface-enhanced Stokes-Raman scattering for molecules adsorbed on a silver electrode

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) from oxazine 720 (oxa), rhodamine 6G (R6G), and pyridine (py) adsorbed on a rough silver surface was observed. The silver electrode was immersed in aqueous solutions permitting control of the potential bias applied to the surface. SERS spectra in the Stokes and anti-Stokes regions were obtained for several applied potentials and two laser excitation energies. Normalized ratios between the anti-Stokes and the Stokes intensities K were calculated from the SERS spectra. The K ratios differed from unity for all the systems investigated. A preferential enhancement of the (surface-enhanced) Stokes scattering was observed for oxa and py. In contrast, the K ratios were higher than unity for R6G, indicating an increase in the anti-Stokes signal. The K ratios measured in this work decreased with the excitation energy and showed a dependence on the energy of the vibrational modes. These results were satisfactorily explained using resonance models, based on the charge-transfer and electromagnetic theories for SERS. No evidence for a SERS-induced nonthermal population distribution among the vibrational states of the adsorbed molecules (vibrational optical pumping) was found. Therefore, we conclude that the main features of the preferential enhancement of the anti-Stokes scattering for an adsorbed molecule on rough silver can be fully understood in the context of current SERS theories.