Proceedings Article | 14 March 2018
KEYWORDS: Dielectrics, Raman scattering, Semiconductors, Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, Metals, Plasmons, Excitons, Molecules, Semiconductor materials, Biochemistry
Dielectrics represent a new frontier for Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering. They can serve either as a complement or an alternative to conventional, metal-based SERS, offering key advantages in terms of low invasiveness, reproducibility, versatility and recyclability. In comparison to metals, dielectric systems and, in particular, semiconductors, are characterized by a much greater variety of parameters and properties that can be tailored to achieve enhanced Raman scattering or related effects. Light trapping and sub-wavelength focusing capabilities, morphology-dependent resonances, control of band gap and stoichiometry, size-dependent plasmons and excitons, charge transfer between semiconductors and molecules and vice-versa are a few examples of the manifold opportunities associated to use of semiconductors as SERS-active materials.
In this talk a few examples [1] of all-dielectric core/shell colloids for plasmon-free SERS,[2] including applications in biochemistry [3-5] and environmental science,[6] will be presented and discussed, with a special focus on the latest results regarding SERS/mass spectrometry multimodal sensing.[7]
References:
1) I. Alessandri, J. R. Lombardi, Chem. Rev. (2016) 116, 14921−14981.
2) I. Alessandri, J. Am. Chem. Soc. (2013) 135, 5541-5544.
3) I. Alessandri et. al., Small (2014) 10, 1294-1298.
4) I. Alessandri et al., ACS-Appl. Mater. Interf. (2016) 8, 14944-14951.
5) N. Bontempi et al. Nanoscale 2017, doi: 10.1039/C7NR0249F
6) N. Bontempi et al., Nanoscale (2016), 8, 326-3231.
7) I. Alessandri et al., Sci. Rep. (2016) 6, 34521.
