Ultrabright Gap-enhanced Raman Tags for High-speed Bioimaging

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2019 Aug 31

PMID 31467266

Citations 40

Authors

Yuqing Zhang

Yuqing Gu

Jing He

Benjamin D Thackray

Jian Ye

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is advantageous over fluorescence for bioimaging due to ultra-narrow linewidth of the fingerprint spectrum and weak photo-bleaching effect. However, the existing SERS imaging speed lags far behind practical needs, mainly limited by Raman signals of SERS nanoprobes. In this work, we report ultrabright gap-enhanced Raman tags (GERTs) with strong electromagnetic hot spots from interior sub-nanometer gaps and external petal-like shell structures, larger immobilization surface area, and Raman cross section of reporter molecules. These GERTs reach a Raman enhancement factor beyond 5 × 10 and a detection sensitivity down to a single-nanoparticle level. We use a 370 μW laser to realize high-resolution cell imaging within 6 s and high-contrast (a signal-to-background ratio of 80) wide-area (3.2 × 2.8 cm) sentinel lymph node imaging within 52 s. These nanoprobes offer a potential solution to overcome the current bottleneck in the field of SERS-based bioimaging.

Citing Articles

In vivo surface-enhanced Raman scattering techniques: nanoprobes, instrumentation, and applications.

Chang H, Hur W, Kang H, Jun B Light Sci Appl. 2025; 14(1):79.

PMID: 39934124 PMC: 11814295. DOI: 10.1038/s41377-024-01718-5.

Clinical applications of nanoprobes of high-resolution imaging.

Kong S, Liu H, Zhang Y, Fan J, Huang W iScience. 2025; 28(1):111459.

PMID: 39829681 PMC: 11742322. DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.111459.

Orthogonal gap-enhanced Raman tags for interference-free and ultrastable surface-enhanced Raman scattering.

Li J, Liu F, He C, Shen F, Ye J Nanophotonics. 2024; 11(8):1549-1560.

PMID: 39635286 PMC: 11501518. DOI: 10.1515/nanoph-2021-0689.

Quantitative and sensitive detection of alpha fetoprotein in serum by a plasmonic sensor.

Xiong Y, Hu H, Zhang T, Xu Y, Gao F, Chen W Nanophotonics. 2024; 11(21):4821-4829.

PMID: 39634743 PMC: 11501717. DOI: 10.1515/nanoph-2022-0428.

Cascaded microsphere-coupled surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (CMS-SERS) for ultrasensitive trace-detection.

Mi Y, Yan Y, Wang M, Yang L, He J, Jiang Y Nanophotonics. 2024; 11(3):559-570.

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