Capillary Tube Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Substrate and High-Sensitivity Molecule Detection

Abstract

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) greatly improves molecule sensitivity compared with ordinary Raman spectroscopy. To excite and detect SERS efficiently, we fabricated glass-made microcapillary tubes decorated with silver nanoparticles inside them. The capillary tubes work as sample containers, where the required sample volume is in the order of a few nanoliters. The capillary tubes also play the role of optical waveguides. The tubes guide the excitation laser light through them so that the light illuminates whole silver nanoparticles inside the tubes at once. The tubes guide the SERS light to the tube end efficiently. The decoration of silver nanoparticles inside the tubes was performed by the silver mirror reaction. By making the tubes thinner and longer, highly sensitive SERS spectroscopy can be achieved. Our method would be a powerful tool for high-sensitivity molecule detection where the sample volume and concentration are extremely low.

The volatile release evaluation of nicotine from snus products under different storage conditions based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy technology

“…[27][28][29] These nanoscale noble metal nanoshell-coated magnetic particles would be useful, especially in the SERS analysis of chemical species dissolved in aqueous solutions because the magnetic particles can be readily enriched from the solution by means of an external magnetic eld without centrifugation or ltration. Meanwhile, the binary SERS substrate combined with a capillary structure, [30][31][32] which is semi-closed, can be used as an embedded SERS substrate or for building micro circulation research. [33][34][35] Besides, according to our previous research, 36 as one type of highly volatile analyte, conducting nicotine's iden-tication based on SERS in a relatively closed or semi-closed state should be better.…”