Poor
reproducibility has long been one of the major limitations
for quantitative surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) analysis.
Historically, plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) have been assembled onto
a certain solid support to address this limitation. Here, in this
work, we report a highly reproducible and self-healing liquid SERS
platform based on a three-dimensional liquid freestanding membrane.
Briefly, the plasmonic NP suspension is mixed with an analyte and
then transferred into the perforated mold to form an FSM, which not
only improves signal reproducibility but also enables on-demand analysis.
The FSM was characterized in situ with a confocal
laser scanning microscope and small-angle X-ray scattering. It was
found that even with the most common, wet chemistry-prepared nonuniform
silver NPs (Ag NPs), the relative standard deviation (RSD) of a large-area
(3.5 mm2) SERS mapping was only 8.80%. The RSDs of the
2500 point-mappings of FSMs formed with Au or Ag NPs of different
shapes and sizes were all below 10%. Various samples were quantitatively
analyzed with the FSM method and compared with high-performance liquid
chromatography/UV–vis. Statistical analysis revealed no significant
difference. It is worth mentioning that this general-purpose method
with low cost is extremely simple, which may pave the way for universal
SERS quantitative analysis on-demand at the point-of-use.
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