A controlled and reproducible pathway to dye-tagged, encapsulated silver nanoparticles as substrates for SERS multiplexing.
Silver nanoparticles tagged with dyes and encapsulated within a silica layer, offer a convenient potential substrate for performing multiplexed surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) analysis. In contrast to our earlier work with gold particles, aggregation of silver particles is found to be mostly independent of dye addition, allowing for a reproducible preparation in which aggregation is actively induced by the addition of NaCl. Separating the aggregation step eliminates competitive binding between the dyes and silica-coating reagents, enabling the efficient use of a wide variety of weakly binding dyes to conveniently generate robust, high-intensity SERS substrates at a variety of excitation frequencies.
Brown
Leif O
LO
Chemical Sciences and Engineering, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA. leif@lanl.gov
Doorn
Stephen K
SK
D004396:Coloring Agents / Q000737:chemistry*; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D010316:Particle Size; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012834:Silver / Q000737:chemistry*; D013059:Spectrum Analysis, Raman / Q000379:methods*; D013499:Surface Properties
D004396:Coloring Agents; D012834:Silver