Superhydrophobicity, plasmonics and Raman spectroscopy for few/single molecule detection down to attomolar concentration

Few/single molecule detection is of great importance in fields including biomedicine, safety and eco-pollution in relation to rare and dangerous chemicals. Superhydrophobic surfaces incorporated with the nanoplasmonic structure enable this device to overcome the diffusion limit of molecules dissolved in water with the concentration down to 10 attomolar. In this paper demonstrated the fabrication of hydrophobic surfaces using optical lithography/reactive ion etching and its application to overcome the diffusion limit. Various experiments such as contact angle measurements, SEM, fluorescence, Raman and FTIR absorption spectroscopy were performed which indicate that utilizing this device it could be possible to perform the measurements for the sample with extremely low dilution. The major application of this novel family of devices would be the early detection of tumors or other important pathologies, with incredible advances in medicine. © 2012 SPIE.