Discussion

The detection of toxins and pathogens has been an increasingly vital concern to society. Their detection is often hampered by the minute quantities that need to be detected for early prevention and treatment to be effective. This work is aiming to utilize Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) to demonstrate single molecule sensitivity of these, from an array of gold nanoparticles (NPs) at a liquid-liquid interface. This work will be combined with reversible adsorption of these particles to such interfaces to allow the full potential of such systems to be realized: in the bulk, the NPs will have the intrinsic high surface area of nano-structures; while the localized particles will have the single molecule sensitivity of aggregates; coupled with the ability of the liquid-liquid interface to detect hydrophobic, hydrophilic and amphiphilic targets.