(June 1, 2015) From
airport security detecting explosives to art historians authenticating
paintings, society’s thirst for powerful sensors is growing.
Given that, few sensing techniques can match the buzz
created by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS).
Discovered in the 1970s, SERS is a sensing technique prized
for its ability to identify chemical and biological molecules in a wide range
of fields. It has been commercialized, but not widely, because the materials
required to perform the sensing are consumed upon use, relatively expensive and
complicated to fabricate.