Surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is able to identify molecules at very low concentrations and so can be put to good use in many analytical applications, such as forensics, medical diagnostics and identifying new drugs. However, the technique suffers from continuous background photoluminescence, the origin of which is still poorly understood. This background makes it more difficult to analyse SERS spectra and spot a few target molecules amid the noise. Researchers at the University of Cambridge in the UK say they have now discovered that this photoluminescence comes from inelastic light scattering of electrons in plasmonic metal nanostructures – a result that could help improve SERS….
http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/60543
