Micromolding-Assisted Production of SERS-Active Microcylinders for Size- and Charge-Selective Molecular Detection

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is an effective technique for amplifying the Raman signal of molecules by using metal nanostructures. However, these metal surfaces are susceptible to contamination by undesirable adhesives in complex mixtures, typically necessitating a time-consuming and costly sample pretreatment. In order to circumvent this, metal nanoparticles have been uniformly embedded within microgels by using microfluidics. In this work, we introduce a simple, scalable micromolding method for creating SERS-active cylindrical microgels designed to eliminate the need for pretreatment. These microcylinders are created through the simultaneous photoreduction and photo-cross-linking of precursor solutions. These solutions are optimized for consistent, high-intensity Raman signals as well as molecular size and charge selectivity. A sequential micromolding method is employed to design dual-compartment microcylinders, offering additional functionalities such as optical encoding, magnetoresponsiveness, and dual-charge selectivity. These SERS-active microcylinders provide robust Raman signals of small molecules, even in the presence of adhesive proteins, without compromising sensitivity. To demonstrate this capability, we directly detect pyocyanin in saliva and tartrazine in whole milk without any need for sample pretreatment.