Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering: Introduction and Applications (original) (raw)
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Surface-enhanced Raman scattering: a new optical probe in molecular biophysics and biomedicine
Theoretical Chemistry Accounts, 2010
Sensitive and detailed molecular structural information plays an increasing role in molecular biophysics and molecular medicine. Therefore, vibrational spectroscopic techniques, such as Raman scattering, which provide high structural information content are of growing interest in biophysical and biomedical research. Raman spectroscopy can be revolutionized when the inelastic scattering process takes place in the very close vicinity of metal nanostructures. Under these conditions, strongly increased Raman signals can be obtained due to resonances between optical fields and the collective oscillations of the free electrons in the metal. This effect of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) allows us to push vibrational spectroscopy to new limits in detection sensitivity, lateral resolution, and molecular structural selectivity. This opens up exciting perspectives also in molecular biospectroscopy. This article highlights three directions where SERS can offer interesting new capabilities. This includes SERS as a technique for detecting and tracking a single molecule, a SERS-based nanosensor for probing the chemical composition and the pH value in a live cell, and the effect of socalled surface-enhanced Raman optical activity, which provides information on the chiral organization of molecules on surfaces.
Term paper for Physics 598 OS Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering Spectroscopy
This review covers from the basic principles of Raman spectroscopy to the advanced technique of surface enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) spectroscopy. After briefly going through the description of Raman and introduction of the development of SERS, the article will focus on the "hotspot" of the current research work on SERS -single molecule spectroscopy. We will see later that "hotspot" is also frequently used to describe the place where SERS happens. This vague description in some extent reflects the ambiguity and controversy in the understanding of the phenomenon. However, single molecule SERS provides us a possible way to disclose the secret.
Journal of the Chilean Chemical Society
The development of new biomaterials has gained increasing attention in the last decade. One of the most important aspects in the development of these new materials is to understand the chemical cues presents in the native niche. Among all the techniques currently available for measuring those interactions, Raman spectroscopy offers a unique and non-invasive tool for exploring the behavior of the components within a given biomaterial and their surrounding microenvironment. This technique exploits the unique molecular vibrational fingerprints for pinpointing those interactions. The vibrational response can be improved to the single molecule level, in the presence of metal nanoparticles (NPs) with plasmonic properties (silver, gold and copper) in the so-called Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS), which can be used for in-situ measurements. Another technique recently developed is the Shell-Isolated Nanoparticle-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SHINERS), which overcomes signal contamination from chemical interactions between biomolecules and the metal surface; it does this by coating the metal surface with an inert layer of alumina or silica. In the present contribution, the role and the applications of Raman, SERS and related spectroscopic techniques in the study of biomolecules in biomaterials are reviewed and discussed.
Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy: Concepts and Chemical Applications
Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2014
Sebastian Schlücker was born in Essen (Germany) in 1973, the year when SERS was first observed in Southampton (UK). He received his PhD in physical chemistry from Würzburg University in 2002. After postdoctoral studies at the NIH (Bethesda, USA) and his Habilitation, he became Professor of Experimental Physics at Osnabrück University in 2008. Since 2012 he has been Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University Duisburg-Essen. His field of research is nanobiophotonics, in particular the physics and chemistry of single plasmonic nanostructures and their appilcations in biomedicine and ultrasensitive chemical analysis. .
A Review on Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering
Biosensors, 2019
Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has become a powerful tool in chemical, material and life sciences, owing to its intrinsic features (i.e., fingerprint recognition capabilities and high sensitivity) and to the technological advancements that have lowered the cost of the instruments and improved their sensitivity and user-friendliness. We provide an overview of the most significant aspects of SERS. First, the phenomena at the basis of the SERS amplification are described. Then, the measurement of the enhancement and the key factors that determine it (the materials, the hot spots, and the analyte-surface distance) are discussed. A section is dedicated to the analysis of the relevant factors for the choice of the excitation wavelength in a SERS experiment. Several types of substrates and fabrication methods are illustrated, along with some examples of the coupling of SERS with separation and capturing techniques. Finally, a representative selection of applications in the biomed...
Surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)—a quantitative analytical tool?
Journal of Raman Spectroscopy, 2006
Raman spectroscopy is a widely used analytical tool capable of providing valuable information about the chemical structure and composition of molecules. In order to detect substances also at a very low concentration levels, Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) was introduced. The different amplification mechanisms result in extreme sensitivity, however, a quantitative use of SERS appears to be problematic. Especially, when deploying silver sols as SERS substrates, the reproducibility of the signal intensities for a given substance concentration is questionable. Experimental results of an investigation of this problem for low concentrations of adenine are presented. Comparison with results obtained for different SERS substrates by other authors reveals clearly different dependencies. Only in a very limited concentration range reproducible and therefore quantitatively utilizable data could be obtained.
Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering as an Emerging Characterization and Detection Technique
Journal of Nanotechnology, 2012
While surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has been attracting a continuously increasing interest of scientific community since its discovery, it has enjoyed a particularly rapid growth in the last decade. Most notable recent advances in SERS include novel technological approaches to SERS substrates and innovative applications of SERS in medicine and molecular biology. While a number of excellent reviews devoted to SERS appeared in the literature over the last two decades, we will focus this paper more specifically on several promising trends that have been highlighted less frequently. In particular, we will briefly overview strategies in designing and fabricating SERS substrates using deterministic patterning and then cover most recent biological applications of SERS.
A Unified Approach to Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy
The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2008
We present a unified expression for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). The expression contains a product of three resonance denominators, representing the surface plasmon resonance, the metal-molecule charge-transfer resonance at the Fermi energy, and an allowed molecular resonance. This latter resonance is that from which intensity is borrowed for charge transfer, and when the molecular resonance is active it is responsible for surface-enhanced resonance Raman spectroscopy. We examine this expression in various limits, to explore the relative contribution or each resonance. First, we look at the situation in which only the surface plasmon resonance is active and examine the various contributions to the Raman signal, including the surface selection rules. Then we examine additional contributions from charge-transfer or molecular resonances. We show that the three resonances are not totally independent, since they are linked by a product of four matrix elements in the numerator. These linked matrix elements provide comprehensive selection rules for SERS. One involves a harmonic oscillator in the observed normal mode. This is the same mode which appears in the vibronic coupling operator linking one of the states of the allowed molecular resonance to the charge-transfer state. The charge-transfer transition moment is linked to the surface plasmon resonance by the requirement that the transition dipole moment be polarized along the direction of maximum amplitude of the field produced by the plasmon (i.e., perpendicular to the metal surface). We show that these selection rules govern the observed SERS spectral intensities and apply these to the observed spectra of several molecules. We also suggest a quantitative measure of the degree to which charge transfer contributes to the overall SERS enhancement.