Meng Shi

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) can boost the pristine Raman signal significantly which could be exploited for producing innovative sensing devices with advanced properties. However, the inherent complexity of SERS systems restricts their further applications in rapid detection, especially in situ detection in narrow areas. Here, we construct an efficient and flexible SERS-based Lab-on-Fiber (LOF) sensor by integrating Ag/Au nanocap arrays obtained by Ag/Au coating polystyrene nanospheres on the optical fiber face. We obtain rich “hot spots” at the nanogaps between neighboring nanocaps, and further achieve SERS performance with the assistance of laser-induced thermophoresis on the metal film that can achieve efficiency aggregation of detected molecules. We achieve a high Raman enhancement with a low detection limitation of 10⁻⁷ mol/L for the most efficient samples based on the above sensor. This sensor also exhibits good repeatability and stability under multiple detections, revealing the potential application for in situ detection based on the reflexivity of the optical fiber.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) can boost the pristine Raman signal by ~ 108 times that could be exploited for producing innovative sensing devices with advanced properties. However, the inherent complexity of SERS systems restricts their further applications in rapid detection, especially in situ detection in narrow aera. Here, we construct an efficient and flexible SERS-based LOP sensor by integrating Ag/Au nanocap arrays obtained by Ag/Au coating polystyrene nanospheres on the optical fiber face. We obtain rich “hotspots” at the nanogaps between neighboring nanocaps and further achieve the excellent SERS performance with the assistance of laser induced thermophoresis on the metal film that can achieve high efficiency aggregation of detected molecules. We achieve a high Raman enhancement with a low detection limitation of 10-7 mol/L for the most efficient samples based on the above sensor. This sensor also exhibits good repeatability and stability under multiple detections, revealing the potential application in situ detection based on the reflexivity of optical fiber.

Red frequency-upconversion fluorescence emission is observed in europium (III) complex with encapsulating polybenzimidazole tripodal ligands, pumped with 930- and 1070-nm picosecond laser pulses. The luminescence of transition 5D0->7F2 (612 nm) is induced by two-photon absorption of hypersensitive transitions 7F0->5D2 (465 nm) and 7F1->5D1 (535 nm). Analysis results suggest that the two-photon excitation strength of these hypersensitive transitions is increased dramatically owing to the C3 symmetry of the coordination field.