Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) is an anomalous enhancement of Raman scattering when molecules are adsorbed to gold or silver nanostructures.

The advantage of SERS over traditional Raman spectroscopy is its ability to detect analyte concentrations of parts per million, and even parts per billion levels, while Raman spectroscopy works best for pure samples and some simple mixtures.

SERS Discovery Kit is an introductory kit for SERS containing a complete selection of Metrohm’s gold and silver P-SERS strips and gold and silver colloids. This kit can be used to evaluate the suitability of SERS for targeted applications.

Metrohm's SERS materials offer key benefits:  

• Excellent shelf-life without stringent storage requirements
• High sensitivity and low variability for consistent performance within and across batches
• Easy-to-use: supports diverse methods of sample delivery including dipping, swabbing, and pipetting
• Cost effective without sacrificing performance
• Customizable form-factor to meet diverse application demands

Potential application areas include:

• Illicit drugs detection
• Pesticides identification
• Food and beverage contamination
• Point of Care diagnostics
• Manufacturing QC&QA
• General SERS R&D

Poly-dispersed 50 – 200 nm diameter nanoparticles are stabilized in an aqueous solution. Each batch is fully tested and validated for SERS performance as part of the production process.