Signal Amplification of Rhodamine Molecules using Colloidal Nanoparticles in Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS)

Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) is a highly sensitive analytical technique used to obtain information on the characteristic molecular motion of a chemical species. Recent development of SERS has been applied to a variety of areas such as authentication, in vitro biosensing and identification of environmental pollutants. The fundamental electromagnetic and chemical enhancement mechanisms, used to increase the scattering signals by orders of magnitude, can be studied by adsorbing Raman-active species to a particle’s surface. This research assesses the signal enhancement of rhodamine dye molecules adsorbed to the metallic surface of collodial silver particles.