Tuning the plasmonic and catalytic signals of Au@Pt nanoparticles for dual-mode biosensing

Dual-mode biosensors have gained great attention due to their excellent detection accuracy provided by the mutual verification of output signals. However, current strategies for dual-mode sensing mainly rely on a signal probe exhibiting dual properties that may encounter unreliability. Herein, we report a dual-mode biosensing strategy by modulating the plasmonic and catalytic activities of nanoparticles through a surface growing approach. Ascorbic acid enables the growing of Au shell on Au@Pt NPs to tune both their peroxidase-like activity and plasmonic signal. Enzyme-catalyzed reactions can generate ascorbic acid to modulate the plasmonic and catalytic activities of nanoparticles. Combined with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, it enables dual-mode immunoassays of carbofuran with both a colorimetric readout by a spectrometer down to 0.1 ppb and a naked-eye readout of 5 ppb. This dual-mode biosensing technique advantages in tunable sensitivity and robustness, holding promise as an analytical platform for biomedical diagnosis and food safety.