Proceedings Article | 8 September 2005
KEYWORDS: Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, Polishing, Nanoparticles, Sensors, Molecules, Raman spectroscopy, Raman scattering, Signal detection, Metals, Surface finishing
The demand for sensors for detecting chemical and biological agents is greater than ever before, including medical, environmental, food safety, military, and security applications. At present, most detection or sensing techniques tend to be either non-molecule specific, bulky, expensive, relatively inaccurate, or unable to provide real time data. Clearly, alternative sensing technologies are urgently needed. In this paper, we present a novel sensor with a nanoparticle surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate coated on D-shaped or end-polished fibers for chemical, biological, and environmental detection. The sensor will be highly sensitive, molecular specific, reliable, label-free, non-invasive, inexpensive, easy to produce commercially using existing technologies, compatible with existing lasers and detectors, and applicable to a large number of molecules of interest. This is made possible by the unique sensor architecture based on a combination of optical fiber technology and novel SERS substrates, where SERS provides the high sensitivity (106-1015 enhancement factor), molecular specificity, and applicability to a wide range of compounds, while the novel fiber configurations provide the flexibility, compactness, reliability, low cost, and ease of production.
