Infrared spectroscopy is a non‐destructive and rapid characterization tool that can distinguish different viral proteins by spectral details. However, traditional infrared spectroscopy has insufficient absorption signal intensity contrast when measuring low‐concentration samples. In this work, surface enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA) spectroscopy is proposed by deploying a novel nanostructure array as SEIRA substrates. An array of gold dendric nanostructures are designed and fabricated with a precision resonance control to achieve surface enhancement covering a broadband molecular “finger‐print” region. The spectral positions of the multiple resonances accurately correspond to the characteristic absorption peaks of the SARS‐CoV‐2 proteins. An approach for SARS‐CoV‐2 protein detection based on SEIRA spectroscopy is then proposed. A low concentration detection of 40 μg/ml diluted SARS‐CoV‐2 nucleocapsid protein is experimentally demonstrated and the enhancement factor (EF) achieved is in good agreement with simulation results. The SEIRA methodology based on broadband resonance nanostructure design provides a systematic approach for sensitive, non‐destructive and rapid protein molecular detection, which could be extended to various kind of molecular characterization and biomedical diagnostics.
Surface enhanced infrared spectroscopy (SEIRA) using resonant nanostructures can distinguish composition and constitution of label‐free samples with low concentration. In this study, we designed a broadband dendric nanostructure and quantified the relationship between structure parameters and resonance. Precise tuning of structure parameters enables the detection of SARS‐CoV‐2 nucleocapsid protein at the solution concentration of 40 μg/ml. This work represents a systematic approach for SEIRA toward biomolecular characterization.
Further details can be found in the article by Yupei Bian, Yang Li, Kang Liu, Houshu He, Yingmei Feng, and Xia Yu (https://doi.org/10.1002/jbio.202200277).
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