Multiplex bioassays encoded by photonic crystal beads and SERS nanotags

Multiplex bioassays have drawn more and more attention for the development of novel analytical techniques. Herein, we used photonic crystal (PC) and surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) as two encoding elements in different modes for the dual encoding of multiplex bioassays. In practice, PC beads and SERS nanotags act as carriers and labels, respectively, for the multiplex detection of antigens in a sandwich format. Except for the amplified capacity by two encoding modes, we also demonstrated that fine stability, low background and high sensitivity were realized for the quantitative analysis of multiple analytes, which holds great promise in biomedical applications like protein biomarker analysis.