Hybrid plasmonic-SERS based biosensing

Providing a fast, reliable, and sensitive alternative to methods of detecting and characterizing analytes in solution will be invaluable to the healthcare services. Currently, analysis techniques may take several weeks providing either qualitative (analyte make-up) or quantitative (concentration) information for a given sample. Here, we present a method to simultaneously acquire both, by utilizing the Kretschmann configuration and combining SERS and plasmonic spectroscopic techniques into a single unit. The proposed method is based on the use of a plasmonic substrate consisting of metallic nanoparticles on a film geometry.