Facile Bioinspired SERS Substrates for Real Life Applications

For the first time, fabrication of bioinspired, eco-friendly, low cost and reproducible surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates based on plant leaf substrates has been done. The naturally occurring roughness... [ view full abstract ]

For the first time, fabrication of bioinspired, eco-friendly, low cost and reproducible surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates based on plant leaf substrates has been done. The naturally occurring roughness (microstructures) on the surface of the plant leaves were replicated using the soft lithography technique. The replica of the leaf surfaces mimicked the surface roughness of the real leaves which influenced the deposition of Au NPs and leading to the formation of electromagnetic hot spots. The surface morphologies of different biomimetic surfaces tend to influence the SERS performance of the substrates which was demonstrated using MB as analyte molecule. Upon comparison of the enhancement factors obtained from the different substrates, one can correlate the effect of surface morphology of the leaf surface with SERS performance which is directly due to the different arrangement of the microstructures within the surfaces. Furthermore the fabricated biomimetic SERS substrate was found to be equally efficient in the real life application which was demonstrated by the sensing/detection of the common pesticides carbendazim and thiabendazole upto 10 nanomolar concentrations.

References:
(1) Sharma, V.; Kumar, S.; and Krishnan, V., (Plant Leaves as Versatile Substrates for Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy: Role of Surface Morphology and Wettability in Determining the Enhancement Factor and Sensitivity of Detection- Manuscript under review).
(2) Sharma, V.; Sinha, N.; Dutt, S.; Chawla, M.; Siril, P. F. Journal of Colloid and interface Science 2016, 463, 180-187.
(3) Dutt, S.; Siril, P. F.; Sharma, V.; Periasamy, S. New Journal of Chemistry 2015, 39, 902-908.