Plasmonic nanoslit for fluidic SERS: A strategy towards genome sequencing

Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS), that occurs by exciting plasmon resonances in metal structures, provides high-sensitivity detection with detailed molecular information. Here we describe the combination of SERS and nanofluidics for the molecular detection inside a plasmonic nanoslit across a thin, metal-coated membrane. The presence of the nanoslit results in mechanical confinement for molecules passing through the slit and in a strong field confinement upon light excitation, required for SERS. Using electrophoresis to actuate the analytes across the nanoslits, we are able to record SERS spectra of limited amount of analytes inside the highly localized detection region. It is expected that the plasmonic nanoslit-based fluidic SERS will become a promising real-time detection tool, especially for emergent applications such as genome sequencing.