Fundamental studies on enhancement and blinking mechanism of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and basic applications of SERS biological sensing

We review recent our results in the fundamental study of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with emphasis on experiments that attempted to identify the enhancement and blinking mechanism using single Ag nanoparticle dimers attached to dye molecules. These results are quantitatively discussed in the framework of electromagnetic mechanism. We also review recent our results in basic SERS applications for biological sensing regarding detections of cell surface molecules and distinction of disease marker molecules under single cell and single molecule level.