Plasmonic Bowl-Shaped Nanopore for Raman Detection of Single DNA Molecules in Flow-Through

Plasmonic nanopores combined with Raman spectroscopy are emerging as platforms for single-molecule detection and sequencing in label-free mode. Recently, the ability of identifying single DNA bases or amino acids has been demonstrated for molecules adsorbed on plasmonic particles and then delivered into the plasmonic pores. Here, we report on bowl-shaped plasmonic gold nanopores capable of direct Raman detection of single λ-DNA molecules in a flow-through scheme. The bowl shape enables the incident laser to be focused into the nanopore to generate a single intense hot spot with no cut off in pore size. Therefore, we achieved ultrasmall focusing of NIR light in a spot of 3 nm. This enabled us to detect 7 consecutive bases along the DNA chain in flow-through conditions. Furthermore, we found a novel electrofluidic mechanism to manipulate the molecular trajectory within the pore volume so that the molecule is pushed toward the hot spot, thus improving the detection efficiency.