Current strategies of plasmonic nanoparticles assisted surface-enhanced Raman scattering toward biosensor studies

With the progressive nanofabrication technology, plasmonic nanoparticles (PNPs) have been increasingly deployed in the field of biosensing. PNPs have favorable biocompatibility, conductivity, and tunable optical properties. In addition, the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of PNPs plays a vital role in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). PNPs-based SERS biosensing enables wide-ranging applications for sensitive detection and high spatial and temporal resolution imaging. Numerous reviews of PNPs in the field of SERS biosensing highlight the fabrication or applications in one or more fields. However, the specific strategies for the SERS biosensor construction had not been summarized systematically. Thus, this work offers a comprehensive overview of SERS enhancement strategies based on PNPs, with a focus on SERS label-free detection along with label detection sensing construction, as well as its challenges and future trends.