Grating-Integrated Gold Nanograsses Encapsulated with ZIF-8: A Quantitative and Ultrasensitive Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Substrate

We proposed and demonstrated highly sensitive hybrid surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates, which are grating-integrated gold nanograsses (GIGN) that are tip-selectively encapsulated by ZIF-8 nanospheres (GIGN/tip-ZIF). This unique structure is realized through the tip-selective modification of GIGN by polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), and then, the tips of the GIGN were encapsulated by ZIF-8 nanospheres. The ZIF-8 nanospheres can adsorb analyte molecules, resulting in the spatial overlap between the analyte molecules and the "hotspots" on the tips of GIGN. Such a unique GIGN/tip-ZIF hybrid SERS substrate exhibits high sensitivity and quantitative detection ability. The detection limits can reach as low as 10^-11 M, and the relative standard deviation is 5.59% for 4-aminothiophenol (4-ATP). In a wide range of concentrations from 10^-5 to 10^-11 M, the SERS intensity and concentration relationship can be fitted as a sigmoidal curve with R² = 0.988. These indicate that the GIGN/tip-ZIF hybrid SERS substrates have broad applications in detecting toxic and harmful substances in food safety, disease diagnosis, and environmental monitoring.