Particulate matters (PMs), which are condensed from air pollutants, pose severe health threats in many industrialized countries. Various chemical analyses of the particulate matters are crucial to specify their air pollutant sources and reduce PMs. Here, we report a chemical analysis technique for the PMs based on Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS). Distinctive Raman spectroscopic signals are detected from PMs whose surface are dispersed with gold nanoparticle aggregates. By exploiting the molecular specific sensitivity of SERS, we distinguish between the PMs according to their sources. To be specific, artificially generated PM materials as a reference are successfully distinguished from soil dusts collected from on-site. This work would pave a way towards identifying the PMs according to their sources and developing an on-site chemical analysis of PMs.
Plasmonically coupled electromagnetic field localization has generated a variety of new concepts
and applications, and this has been one of the hottest topics in nanoscience, materials science,
chemistry, physics and engineering and increasingly more important over the last decade. In
particular, plasmonically coupled nanostructures with ultra-small gap (~1-nm or smaller) gap have
been of special interest due to their ultra-strong optical properties that can be useful for a variety of
signal enhancements such surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and nanoantenna. These
promising nanostructures with extraordinarily strong optical signal, however, have rendered a
limited success in widespread use and commercialization largely due to the lack of designing
principles, high-yield synthetic strategies with nm-level structural controllability and reproducibility
and lack of systematic single-molecule and single-particle level studies. All these are extremely
important challenges because even small changes (~1 nm) of the coupled nanogap structures can
significant affect plasmon mode and signal intensity and therefore structural and signal
reproducibility and controllability can be in question. The plasmonic nanogap-enhanced Raman
scattering (NERS) is defined as the plasmonic nanogap-based Raman signal enhancement within
plasmonic nanogap particles with ~1 nm gap and a Raman dye positioned inside the gap.
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