Nanotag-enabled photonic crystal fiber as quantitative surface-enhanced Raman scattering optofluidic platform

Core-shell nanotags that are active in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and entrapped with thiocyanate (SCN) label molecules were immobilized in the air channels of suspended-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) to impart quantitative capacity to SERS-based PCF optofluidic sensing platform. The Raman intensity of Rhodamine 6G increases with concentration, whereas the intensity of SCN remains constant when measured using this platform. The signal from the SCN label can be used as an internal reference to establish calibration for quantitative measurements of analytes of unknown concentrations. The long optical path-length PCF optofluidic platform integrated with SERS-active core-shell nanotags holds significant promise for sensitive quantitative chem/bio measurements with the added benefit of small sampling volume. The dependence of SERS intensity on the nanotag coverage density and PCF length was interpreted based on numerical-analytical simulations. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.