Plasmonic Slippery Surface for Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy and Protein Adsorption Inhibition

Slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPSs) are a class of surface that offers low contact angle hysteresis and low tilt angle for water droplet shedding. This property also endows the surface with pinning-free evaporation, which in turn has been exploited for analyte concentration enrichment for Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopic applications and antibiofouling. Herein, we demonstrate a facile approach for creating SLIPS with low contact angle hysteresis and low tilt angle for water shedding by coating the equal-volume mixture of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and silicone oil. By exploiting the in situ plasmonic particle reduction capability of the PDMS, the surface is converted to plasmonic SLIPS, which illustrates its potential as a sensitive analytical platform via surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. The Raman spectroscopic studies using crystal violet as a reference sample show a limit of detection of 76 pM. Further, we have demonstrated that the fabricated plasmonic substrate is found to be more efficient in inhibiting proteins (bovine serum albumin) on the surface compared to pristine PDMS surfaces. Our fabricated plasmonic surface can find applications in ultrasensitive molecular detection for applications related to analytical chemistry, diagnostics, environmental monitoring, and national security and more importantly can control the nonspecific adsorption of proteins.