Preparation, Characterization and Application of Microfluidic-SERS Sensors

Preparation, Characterization and Application of Microfluidic-SERS Sensors

 Joseph Parisi, Liang Su, Yixin Liu, Yu Lei

Department of Chemical, Materials, & Biomolecular Engineering, University of Connecticut, 191 Auditorium Road, Unit 3222, Storrs, Connecticut 06269

Research for the detection of chemical and biological species is consistently moving forward and creating more accurate and sensitive devices.  However, many of these devices require multiple steps for not only fabrication of the sensor material but also for preparation of the sample for testing.  In many of these examples there is no simple approach to economically fabricate novel 3-D sensing materials and package them within a microfluidic channel for future applications. Our work focuses on in-situ preparation of 3-D nanostructured electrodes within a microfluidic channel using electrodeposition and galvanic replacement reactions.  These nanostructures are fabricated in a fraction of the time of traditional lithography, CVD and hydrothermal techniques, require less material and limit any complicated fabrication steps.  Once the nanostructures are fabricated they are immediately ready for species detection using surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS).  The detection of various species is demonstrated using the developed device.