Tunable Tamm plasmon cavity as a scalable biosensing platform for surface enhanced resonance Raman spectroscopy

Area of Science:

• Plasmonics
• Spectroscopy
• Biomaterials

Background:

• Surface-enhanced Resonance Raman Spectroscopy (SERRS) amplifies Raman signals by aligning laser excitation with plasmonic resonance and biomolecule absorption.
• Existing SERRS platforms often lack tunability and scalability for diverse biomarker detection.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a tunable Tamm plasmon polariton (TPP) cavity for scalable SERRS.
• To demonstrate the platform's efficacy in detecting disease biomarkers.

Main Methods:

• Fabricated a gold film-coated distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) using Sb2S3, a phase-change material.
• Achieved tunable TPP resonances across optical wavelengths.
• Demonstrated SERRS by matching TPP resonance with a chromophore at 785 nm.

Main Results:

• Successfully detected cardiac Troponin I (cTnI), a cardiovascular disease biomarker.
• Achieved a sensitive detection limit of 380 fM for cTnI.
• The platform exhibited tunable TPP resonances for versatile sensing applications.

Conclusions:

• The tunable TPP cavity offers a scalable and promising platform for SERRS.
• This technology has potential for next-generation biosensing in clinical diagnostics.
• Enables routine, real-time detection of disease biomarkers in bodily fluids.