Grooved nanoplate assembly for rapid detection of surface enhanced Raman scattering

Rapid detection of surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) signals is in great demand in the fields of biological medicine and environmental monitoring. Herein, a grooved silver nanoplate assembly (GSNA) with an abundance of multiscale gaps has been proposed for the first time and skillfully synthesized to act as an excellent platform for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy with ultrafast and ultrasensitive detection. By effectively combining the hotspots effect of nanogaps and the trapping effect of gaps in the scale of subwavelength, the Raman signal was greatly enhanced by a factor of 1010 and the detection limit of Rhodamine 6G (R6G) could reach 5 × 10−13 M. Moreover, based on the perfect adsorption of the multiscale gaps, the probe molecule could be detected immediately after the analyte was mixed with the GSNA. In addition, the mixed analytes of R6G and crystal violet could be easily distinguished by Raman signal detection based on the fabricated basement. This study provides an effective SERS platform to achieve ultrafast Raman detection with ultrasensitivity in the fields of chemical analysis, biomedicine and environmental monitoring.