Bioscaffold arrays decorated with Ag nanoparticles as a SERS substrate for direct detection of melamine in infant formula

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) plasmonic structures have been intensively investigated as high performance surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates. Here, we demonstrate a 3D biomimetic SERS substrate prepared by deposition of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) on the bioscaffold arrays of cicada wings using laser molecular beam epitaxy. This deposition method can offer a large number of nanoparticles with average diameter of ∼10 nm and nanogaps of sub-10 nm on the surface of chitin nanopillars to generate a high density of hotspots. The prepared 3D Ag/cicada SERS substrate shows a limit of detection (LOD) for Rhodamine 6G as low as 10⁻⁷ M, high enhancement factor of 1.09 × 10⁵, and excellent signal uniformity of 6.8%. Moreover, the molecular fingerprints of melamine in infant formula can be directly extracted with an LOD as low as 10 mg L⁻¹, without the need for functional modification. The prepared SERS-active substrate, due to its low cost, high-throughput, and good detection performance, can be widely used in applications such as food safety and environmental monitoring.