Determination and Comparison of the SERS Enhancement Factor for Nanocomposite Substrates

The surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) enhancement factor (EF) for different types of Au NP – epoxy surface nanocomposites were determined and compared in this work. The surface nanocomposites were fabricated with varying nanoparticle and inter-particle distances and were used for the label-free detection of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) molecules with SERS. Different types of SERS EF (electrical field-enhancement based, substrate-specific, etc.) were determined for three different surface nanocomposites. The relevance and applicability of different SERS EFs for the characterization of the substrates and the effect of particle size / interparticle gap ratio on the determined EFs were discussed in the paper.