(738d) Engineered Quasi-3D Plasmonic Nanostructures for Rapid Pathogen Identification Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has immerged as a powerful analytical and sensing tool for use in many important areas such as biomedical diagnostic, genomics analysis, and biological and chemical threats detection. Recently our group developed novel quasi-3D plasmonic nanostructures fabricated precisely via electron beam lithography followed by metallization, which exhibit a strong SERS effect. The rational design and precisely controlled dimensions allow us not only to optimize the nanostructures for detection large microorganisms but also to perform quantitative analysis for rapid identifying microorganisms. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) calculations were performed to understand the electric field distribution and the enhancement of Raman for different dimensions. SERS spectra of four pathogen bacteria on quasi-3D SERS substrate were taken and used to differentiate pathogen bacteria using principal component analysis. Furthermore, we demonstrated that pathogen bacteria can be rapidly detected and identified in multiple analytes in real time using quasi-3D plasmonic nanostructures as SERS substrates combined with microfluidic systems.