Disposable plasmonic plastic SERS sensor

The 'Klarite™' SERS sensor platform consisting of an array of gold coated inverted square pyramids patterned onto a silicon substrate has become the industry standard over the last decade, providing highly reproducible SERS signals. In this paper, we report successful transfer from silicon to plastic base platform of an optimized SERS substrate design which provides 8 times improvement in sensitivity for a Benzenethiol test molecule compared to standard production Klarite. Transfer is achieved using roll-to-roll and sheet-level nanoimprint fabrication techniques. The new generation plastic SERS sensors provide the added benefit of cheap low cost mass-manufacture, and easy disposal. The plastic replicated SERS sensors are shown to provide ~10(7) enhancement factor with good reproducibility (5%).