A facile method for fabrication of buckled PDMS silver nanorod arrays as active 3D SERS cages for bacterial sensing

Our results demonstrate that it is possible, by means of generation of buckles on the silver nanorod (AgNR) array PDMS substrate, to enhance the Raman signal of P. aeruginosa bacteria due to the formation of high density 'hot spots' among the AgNR arrays which provides better entrapment and increases the net effective contact area of bacteria with the metal surface.