This paper presents an in-depth study of Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) enhancement factors (EFs) and cross-sections, including several issues often overlooked. In particular, various possible rigorous definitions of the SERS EFs are introduced and discussed in the context of SERS applications, such as analytical chemistry and single molecule SERS. These definitions highlight the impo...

Fabricating well-defined and highly reproducible platforms for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is very important in developing practical SERS sensors. We report a novel SERS platform composed of a single metallic nanowire (NW) on a metallic film. Optical excitation of this novel sandwich nanostructure provides a line of SERS hot spots (a SERS hot line) at the gap between the NW and the...

Noble metal nanoparticles (NPs) are the most commonly employed plasmonic substrates in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) experiments. Computer simulations show that monomers of Ag and Au nanocrystals ("spherical" NPs) do not exhibit a notable plasmonic enhancement, i.e., they are essentially non-SERS-active. However, in experiments, SERS enhanced by spherical NP colloids has been frequen...

Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has the potential to be utilized for the detection of a broad range of chemicals in trace quantities. However, because of the cost and complexity of SERS devices, the technology has been unable to fill the needs of many practical applications, in particular the need for rapid, portable, on-site detection in the field. In this work, we review a new meth...

The widespread implementation of surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) techniques for chemical and biological detection requires an inexpensive, yet robust SERS substrate with high sensitivity and reproducibility. To that end, we present a facile method to fabricate plasmonic SERS substrates with well-distributed SERS "hot spots" on a large scale with reproducible SERS enhancement factors of...

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) benefits from the enhanced electromagnetic field of the localized surface plasmon resonance effect of metallic (especially coinage metals) nanoparticles or nanostructures. The detection sensitivity and reproducibility of SERS measurement appear to be the two critical issues in SERS. To solve the problem associated with traditional nanoparticle aggregat...

Single molecule surface enhanced Raman scattering (SM-SERS) is a highly local effect occurring at sharp edges, interparticle junctions and crevices or other geometries with a sharp nanoroughness of plasmonic nanostructures ("hot spots"). The emission of an individual molecule at SM-SERS conditions depends on the local enhancement field of the hot spots, as well as the binding affinity and posit...

Telomere length can provide valuable insight into telomeres and telomerase related diseases, including cancer. Here, we present a brand-new optical telomere length measurement protocol using surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). In this protocol, two single strand DNA are used as SERS probes. They are labeled with two different Raman molecules and can specifically hybridize with telomeres a...

Immunochromatographic sensors (ICSs) are inexpensive, simple, portable, and robust, thus making ICSs commonplace in clinical diagnoses, food testing, and environmental monitoring. However, commonly used gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) ICSs have low sensitivity. Therefore, we developed highly sensitive surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) ICSs. To enhance the sensitivity of SERS ICSs, rough surfa...

Ag semishells (AgSS) ordered arrays for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy have been prepared by depositing Ag film onto polystyrene colloidal particle (PSCP) monolayer templates array. The diversified activity for SERS activity with the ordered AgSS arrays mainly depends on the PSCP diameter and Ag film thickness. The high SERS sensitivity and reproducibility are proved by t...