Single-atom sites on perovskite chips for record-high sensitivity and quantification in SERS

Surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a rapid and nondestructive technique that is capable of detecting and identifying chemical or biological compounds. Sensitive SERS quantification is vital for practical applications, particularly for portable detection of biomolecules such as amino acids and nucleotides. However, few approaches can achieve sensitive and quantitative Raman detection of these most fundamental components in biology. Herein, a noble-metal-free single-atom site on a chip strategy was applied to modify single tungsten atom oxide on a lead halide perovskite, which provides sensitive SERS quantification for various analytes, including rhodamine, tyrosine and cytosine. The single-atom site on a chip can enable quantitative linear SERS responses of rhodamine (10 −6 −1 mmol L −1 ), tyrosine (0.06–1 mmol L −1 ) and cytosine (0.2–45 mmol L −1 ), respectively, which all achieve record-high enhancement factors among plasmonic-free semiconductors. The experimental test and theoretical simulation both reveal that the enhanced mechanism can be ascribed to the controllable single-atom site, which can not only trap photoinduced electrons from the perovskite substrate but also enhance the highly efficient and quantitative charge transfer to analytes. Furthermore, the label-free strategy of single-atom sites on a chip can be applied in a portable Raman platform to obtain a sensitivity similar to that on a benchtop instrument, which can be readily extended to various biomolecules for low-cost, widely demanded and more precise point-of-care testing or in-vitro detection.