The origin of ultrasensitive SERS sensing beyond plasmonics

TL;DR

This review discusses recent advances in plasmon-free SERS substrates, highlighting their mechanisms, enhancement strategies, and applications in biomedical and chemical sensing, along with current challenges and future directions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive summary of recent developments, focusing on novel enhancement mechanisms and diverse applications of plasmon-free SERS substrates.

Findings

Recent progress in fabricating plasmon-free SERS substrates

Various enhancement strategies for improved sensitivity

Applications in biomedical diagnosis and pollutant detection

Abstract

Plasmon-free surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates have attracted tremendous attention for their abundant sources, excellent chemical stability, superior biocompatibility, good signal uniformity, and unique selectivity to target molecules. Recently, researchers have made great progress in fabricating novel plasmon-free SERS substrates and exploring new enhancement strategies to improve their sensitivity. This review summarizes the recent developments of plasmon-free SERS substrates and specially focuses on the enhancement mechanisms and strategies. Furthermore, the promising applications of plasmon-free SERS substrates in biomedical diagnosis, metal ions and organic pollutants sensing, chemical and biochemical reactions monitoring, and photoelectric characterization are introduced. Finally, current challenges and future research opportunities in plasmon-free SERS substrates are briefly discussed.