Stretchable plasmonic substrate with tunable resonances for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

Transparent and flexible functional nanostructures are very important for flexible electronic devices, such as roll-up displays, handheld portable devices, and wearable electronics, and have attracted growing scientific and industrial interest in recent years. We produced a facile and flexible hybrid structure by conjugating plasmonic nanostructures onto the surface of a poly (dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) elastomer. Such flexible hybrids were able to remarkably enhance Raman scattering from small molecules. Most interestingly, we showed that by taking advantage of the excellent flexibility of the PDMS, the plasmonic resonances of the hybrid structure could be easily tuned via external compression force. This allows for further enhancing the Raman scattering by tailoring the plasmon of the hybrid structure in resonance with the incidence laser. We believe that these properties can make the hybrid structure an excellent, flexible SERS substrate that will be of great importance in life science, medicine, and food security sensing applications.