The continued impact of our research - Annual Report 2018

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The continued impact of our research - Annual Report 2018

8 April, 2019

A case study on Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS)

The continued impact of our research

SERS is a new field of spectroscopy that is capable of detecting single molecules. It has potential applications in sensing technologies. The research into SERS at the MacDiarmid Institute has made major contributions to this sphere.

A paper from 2007 published in J. Phys. Chem. C. [SERS enhancement factors: a comprehensive study E. C. Le Ru, E. Blackie, M. Meyer, and P. G. Etchegoin, J. Phys. Chem. C 111, 13794 (2007)] is arguably one of the most important recent papers in the field of Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS).

It provides a comprehensive study, both theoretical and experimental, of one of the most important concepts in SERS: the SERS enhancement factors. It provides for the first time a classification along with rigorous definitions of the SERS enhancement factors and highlights limitations of previous measurements.

Moreover, for the first time it provided a careful and credible estimation of the SERS enhancement factors required for single molecule detection, one of the ultimate applications of SERS to analytical chemistry. It is likely to serve as a long-standing reference for the SERS community.

It is the second most cited research paper (excluding reviews) in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C, one of the leading physical chemistry/nanoscience journal [A* ERA ranking], out of about 36,000 published articles. It has received over 1500 citations (according to Google Scholar).

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