Themed collection Plasmonics and spectroscopy

This themed issue presents an exciting collection of articles on the studies of plasmonics and optical spectroscopy.

This perspective presents an overview of single-molecule surface-enhanced Raman scattering (sm-SERS).

Selected medical applications of SERS from the past few years are highlighted. Both aspects – the label-free SERS detection of biomedical samples as well as the use of SERS labels in medical applications – are covered.

Surface enhanced spectroscopy encompasses a broad field of linear and nonlinear optical techniques that arose with the discovery of the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) effect.

Electrodes with nanogaps enable simultaneous plasmon-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and electronic transport at the molecular scale, probing optical and dissipative processes.

This perspective aims to highlight the recent developments in SE(R)RS for the detection of biomolecules.

Super-resolution imaging allows the location of plasmon-coupled molecular emission to be determined with <5 nm resolution.

SERS is some 35 years old, and the subject of over 11 000 articles.

This perspective focuses on the recent developments and future directions for the fabrication of flexible nanoplasmonic devices for sensing applications based on SERS and LSPR.

We theoretically elucidate peculiar photoexcitation processes of a two-level molecular system coherently coupled with an antenna system having a significant dissipation.

We demonstrated that the scattering and luminescence patterns of freely oriented GNRs can be used for sensing dielectric media.

The relative merits “poor metal” nanoparticle systems for achieving plasmonic behavior in the ultraviolet spectral region are assessed.

The structure-dependent plasmonic enhancement of Raman spectra indicates a possibility of structurally-characterized small clusters for sensitizing various optical processes.

The specific interaction of gold and silver nanoparticles with hemoglobin and red blood cells in the context of nanotoxicity was investigated by surface-enhanced Raman scattering.

We present the theoretical LSPR-based optical properties and SERS properties of gold nanoparticles at the water–oil interface based on 3D-FDTD numerical simulations, including far field and near field features.

We present experimental and simulated results exploring the dielectric response and potential for chemical sensing applications of a Au concentric disk ring cavity array integrated with an encapsulating graphene overlayer.

Improving correlated SEM/SERS studies.

We report a novel SERS-based sandwich immunoassay using DNA aptamer and a gold-patterned microarray for sensitive detection of VEGF angiogenesis protein markers.

Inorganic phosphate and ATP mediate high affinity binding of cytochrome c on positively charged SAMs, with preservation of the native protein structure and rendering an average orientation that guarantees efficient pathways for direct electron transfer.