Drawing-fabrication of multifarious nanoplasmonic platform on PLLA paper for optimized SERS performance

A simple and efficient pen-on-paper approach is designed to prepare hydrophilic surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-active lines by directly writing on a piece of hydrophobic poly (L-lactic acid) nanofibrous paper using a pen filled with plasmonic nanoparticle ink. The pen-on-paper-line SERS substrate exhibits hydrophobic–hydrophilic focusing effects together with negligible background interference, high sensitivity, good reproducibility, and long-term stability. Furthermore, just by drawing three different plasmonic nanoparticles, the SERS activity is optimized for different molecules. Considering the complex factors involved in SERS effects of real analytes, our results provide an efficient strategy to produce optimized SERS substrates with multiple plasmonic nanoparticles. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.