Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy as a tool for characterizing nanostructures containing molecular components

Raman spectroscopy, which is based on inelastic scattering of light that interacts with phonons or molecular vibrations in the nanostructure, has been widely used to identify chemical and biological molecules. Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) greatly enhanced the sensitivity of conventional Raman spectroscopy by a factor of >106 through the use of a plasmon-generating substrate [1, 2]. This study investigated the use of Raman spectroscopy/SERS to verify that synthesized nanostructures contain active molecular components critical to their functioning. In particular, this study uses SERS to identify the signature spectrum of Methylene Blue (MB) and uses standard Raman spectroscopy to verify the fictionalization of a DNA aptamer terminated with MB.