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By combining the excellent surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activity of Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs), the well-separated pyramid arrays of the pyramidal silicon (PSi) and unique physical/chemical properties of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), the MoS2@AgNPs@PSi substrate shows high performance in terms of sensitivity, uniformity, reproducibility and stability. By using rhodamine 6G (R6G) as probe molecule, the SERS results indicate that the MoS2@AgNPs@PSi substrate is superior to the AgNPs@PSi, AgA@PSi (the second annealing of the AgNPs@PSi) and the MoS2@AgNPs@flat-Si substrate. The MoS2@AgNPs@PSi substrate also shows the reasonable linear response between the Raman intensity and R6G concentration. The maximum deviations of SERS intensities from 20 positions on a same MoS2@AgNPs@PSi substrate and 10 MoS2@AgNPs@PSi substrates in different batches are less than 7.6% and 9%, respectively, revealing the excellent uniformity and reproducibility of the substrate. Besides, the SERS substrate has a good stability, the Raman intensity of the MoS2@AgNPs@PSi substrate only drop by 15% in a month. The corresponding experimental and theoretical results suggest that our proposed MoS2@AgNPs@PSi substrate is expected to offer a new and practical way to accelerate the development of label-free SERS detection.

In this work, we demonstrated facile and low-cost fabrication of highly sensitive SERS substrates via replacement reaction by immersing Cu foils into a AgNO 3 solution. Different morphologies of Ag nanostructures were observed on the substrate surface by controlling the reaction time. The growth mechanism of Ag nanostructures on the Cu substrates was also analyzed based on the nanostructure evolution. The Ag-Cu substrates showed optimum SERS enhancement at certain reaction time, and the minimum detected concentration of Rhodamine 6G is as low as 10 −13 M. The easy and low-cost fabrication makes the Ag-Cu SERS substrates promising for rapid, sensitive detection of targeted analytes, such as biomolecules, pollutants, and explosives in the environment.

An evanescent wave absorption (EWA) sensor based on tapered multimode fiber (TMMF) coated with monolayer graphene film for the detection of double-stranded DNA (DS-DNA) is investigated in this work. The TMMF is a silica multimode fiber (nominally at 62.5 μm), which was tapered to symmetric taper with waist diameters of ~30 μm and total length of ~3 mm. Monolayer graphene film was grown on a copper foil via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technology and transferred onto skinless tapered fiber core via dry transfer technology. All the components of the sensor are coupled together by fusion splicer in order to eliminate the external disturbance. DS-DNA is created by the assembly of two relatively complemented oligonucleotides. The measurements are obtained by using a spectrometer in the optical wavelength range of 400–900 nm. With the increase of DS-DNA concentration, the output light intensity (OPLI) arisen an obvious attenuation. Importantly, the absorbance (A) and the DS-DNA concentrations shown a reasonable linear variation in a wide range of 5–400 μM. Through a series of comparison, the accuracy of TMMF sensor with graphene (G-TMMF) is much better than that without graphene (TMMF), which can be attributed to the molecular enrichment of graphene by π–π stacking.

A facile fabrication of high-quality and large-area tungsten disulfide (WS2) layers is demonstrated using a thermal decomposition of tetrathiotungstates ((NH4)2WS4) with two annealing process. During synthesis, the first annealing step is utilized to achieve lateral epitaxial growth of the WS2 and create seamless and large-area WS2 film. The second annealing step can offer an S-rich and high temperature condition, which is beneficial for the high quality of the WS2 film. Scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy confirm the presence of large-area and high-quality WS2 film. The crucial role of the S, H2 and the effect of the temperature during the experiment are also investigated. Furthermore, the potential application of the prepared WS2 as a substrate for Raman enhancement is first discussed using R6G molecules as probe molecule.

In this work, we present a novel optical fiber SERS (OF-SERS) sensor based on a sandwich structure of GO/AgNPs/rGO. Rhodamine 6G (R6G) was selected as the probe molecule to compare the SERS ability of different films composed of the bare optical fiber, GO, AgNPs, rGO/AgNPs, GO/AgNPs and GO/AgNPs/rGO. Raman spectra, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were performed to characterize the sandwich structure hybrid films. Besides, the stability of GO/AgNPs and GO/AgNPs/rGO was compared on the optical fiber end face. The OF-SERS sensor based GO/AgNPs/rGO hybrid films had stable SERS performance even when exposed to ambient conditions for a prolonged time of 30 days. This work may provide a new strategy for an efficient stable OF-SERS sensor due to its simplicity, low-cost and long-term stability.

In this work, we presented a novel evanescent wave absorption sensor based on U-bent tapered multimode fiber covered by molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) film (MoS2@TU fiber EWA sensor). The multimode fiber was manufactured by the fused tapered fiber machine, and then heated using a butane candle flame and bent into a U-bent structure. MoS2 was grown on the fiber directly by thermally decomposing the precursor of (NH4)2MoS4. We have demonstrated that the MoS2 can be applied in the filed of EWA sensor, and the EWA sensor based on U-bent tapered multimode fiber (TU fiber) possessed higher sensitivity than that based on U-bent fiber. The sensitivity (ΔA/ΔC) of the developed EWA sensor is 0.34 in detection of ethanol solution. It shows good sensitivity, linearity, repeatability and stability in detection. And the developed EWA sensor also shows good performance in detection of the adenosine solution, this work shows that the developed EWA sensor may have promising applications in biosensing.

In this work, we have presented a novel local surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) sensor based on the U-bent plastic optical fibre (U-POF). Firstly, a layer of discontinuous silver (Ag) thin film was deposited on the U-POF and then the Ag film was covered by a layer of cladding synthesized by polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), graphene and silver nanoparticles forming the PVA/G/AgNPs@Ag film. The normalized transmittance spectrum of the LSPR sensor have been collected in a range of the refractive index (RI) from 1.330 to 1.3657 in ethanol solution, and 700.3 nm/RIU sensitivity of the developed LSPR sensor has been demonstrated. By experiments, we demonstrated that the graphene could improve the sensitivity of the LSPR sensor and delay the oxidation process of the AgNPs effectively to keep the stability of the LSPR sensor. The LSPR sensor also exhibited good sensitivity and linearity in the detection of glucose solutions. This work shows that the developed LSPR sensor may have promising applications in biosensing.