Tunable, Liquid Resistant Tip Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy
Probes: Toward Label-Free Nano-Resolved Imaging of Biological Systems
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Abstract
Tip
enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) has been established as
a powerful, noninvasive technique for chemical identification at the
nanoscale. However, difficulties, including the degradation of probes,
limit its use in liquid systems. Here TERS probes for studies in aqueous
environments have been demonstrated using titanium nitride coatings
with an alumina protective layer. The probes show enhancement in signal
intensity as high as 380% in liquid measurements, and the probe resonance
can be tuned by varying deposition conditions to optimize performance
for different laser sources and types of samples. This development
of inexpensively produced probes suited for studies in aqueous environments
enables its wider use for fields such as biology and biomedicine in
which aqueous environments are the norm