Enhanced Raman Spectrum of Juglone on Ag Surface: Is It a Simile to That of Lawsone?

The surface enhanced Raman spectrum of juglone, a traditional natural dye, has been observed by a custom-built micro-Raman setup. The spectral features of juglone significantly differ from those of lawsone, a structural isomer of juglone; only small red shifts of the double bond stretching bands are observed, and strong SERS bands are observed in the lower frequency regions as well. The DFT computations reveal that juglone coordinated to an $Ag^+$ adatom with $H^+$ release best correlates with the observed vibrational characteristics in the SERS spectrum among the plausible configurations of juglone coordinated to an adatom on the Ag surface, in line with the previously studied lawsone case. The differences in the SERS spectra of juglone and lawsone are attributed to the different locations of the hydroxyl group in the two isomers.