Highly sensitive SERS-based immunoassay with simultaneous utilization of self-assembled substrates of gold nanostars and aggregates of gold nanostars†
Abstract
We have developed a highly sensitive SERS-based sandwich immunoassay by utilizing two derivatives of gold nanostars simultaneously. One is densely packed self-assembled substrates of gold nanostars and the other is labeled immune nanostar aggregates. Taking advantage of the electromagnetic field coupling between tips of adjacent individual nanostars, the self-assembled substrate of gold nanostars exhibited a better SERS performance than that of