Detection of Buried Explosives Using a Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) Substrate Tailored for Miniaturized Spectrometers

• DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.0c01412
• Publication Date: 2020-08-17T10:25:53Z
• Authors: Yuting Huang; Wen Liu; Zhengjun Gong; Wei Wu; Meikun Fan; Dongmei Wang; Alexandre G. Brolo
• Keywords: Dinitrobenzenes; Explosive Agents; 02 engineering and technology; Spectrum Analysis, Raman; 0210 nano-technology

The advent of miniaturized, fiber-based, Raman spectrometers provides a clear path for the wide implementation surface-enhanced scattering (SERS) in analytical chemistry. For instance, miniaturized systems are especially useful field applications due to their simplicity and low cost. However, traditional SERS substrates generally developed optimized using expensive microscope equipped with high numerical aperture (NA) objective lenses. Here, we introduced new type substrate intrinsic photon directing capability that compensates relatively signal collection power fiber-based spectrometers. was tested detection buried 2,4-dinitrotoluene simulated conditions. A linear calibration curve (R2 = 0.98) spanning 3 orders magnitude (from μg kg–1 mg kg–1) obtained limit 10 within total volume μL. This level is 2 lower than possible current state-of-the-art technologies, such as ion mobility spectrometry–mass spectrometry. approach reported here demonstrated high-performance conditions by platform can be deployed routine inspection landmine-contaminated sites homeland security applications.