Assignment of charge transfer absorption band in optical absorption spectra of the adsorbate-silver colloid system

In this paper we reported the UV-visible-NIR optical absorption properties of silver colloid, employed as a high efficient substrate in surface-enhanced Raman spectra (SERS), under various conditions. Experimental results revealed that the new absorption band, usually appearing in the longer wavelength region due to the addition of molecules, was related to the direct adsorption of molecules on colloidal silver surface. When the adsorption occurred, this new band would appear. Once the molecules were desorbed from silver surface, the new band could not be observed. Some evidences inferred that the new absorption band was associated with the effect of charge-transfer transition between adsorbates and colloidal silver particles, while not with the effect of the surface plasma resonance due to the silver particles aggregation which was usually attributed to in previous research work. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.