Assessing Metal Nanofabricated Substrates for Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) Activity and Reproducibility

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has been shown to be an effective technique for increasing the detection sensitivity in chemical and biological applications. SERS has a distinct advantage over normal Raman spectroscopy, with enhancements typically greater than 10(4) over the normal Raman signal; however, this advantage in sensitivity comes with a caveat: controlling the spectroscopic reproducibility and enhancement activity of metal nanostructured substrates can be difficult. We present a survey and subsequent data analysis performed on several nanostructured substrates designed for SEAS, including silver and gold colloids, silver nanorods, gold nanoshells, and commercially manufactured gold nanostructures.