Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 19, 2026
Fabrication of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-Based Flexible Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) Substrate for Ultrasensitive Detection
Published on: November 17, 2023
Hovenia acerba-inspired silver nanostructure-modified hydrogel SERS substrate with 3D high-density network hotspots
Jiechen Xu1, Ying Chen1, Nan Sun2
1Key Laboratory of Tropical Fruits and Vegetables Quality and Safety for State Market Regulation, School of Food Science and Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China.
Abstract:
The detection performance of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates is closely related to their three-dimensional plasmonic nanostructures. In this work, a series of three-dimensional porous hovenia acerba-like silver nanostructure-decorated polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel (HA-AgNPs@PVA) SERS substrates were fabricated by a facile in-situ chemical reduction strategy. Three-dimensional porous plasmonic nanostructures possess numerous nanopores, capable of forming multi-level and high-density hot spots. Additionally, the porous nanostructures can accommodate a greater number of probe molecules, significantly enhancing SERS performance. Using crystal violet as probe molecule, the optimized HA-AgNPs@PVA SERS substrate achieves a detection sensitivity of 10-10 M and an enhancement factor of 1.6 × 108. Moreover, flexible HA-AgNPs@PVA SERS substrate was applied for the detection of thiram on various fruit surfaces using a "stick-and-read" approach, delivering a high detection sensitivity of 10-8 M and demonstrating excellent quantitative detection capability. The developed flexible SERS platform exhibits great potential for on-site food safety monitoring.
