• DOI:10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.78.1667
• Corpus ID: 12377332

Single Molecule Detection Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS)

@article{Kneipp1997SingleMD,
  title={Single Molecule Detection Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS)},
  author={Katrin Kneipp and Katrin Kneipp and Yang Wang and Yang Wang and Harald Kneipp and Harald Kneipp and Lev T. Perelman and Lev T. Perelman and Irving Itzkan and Irving Itzkan and Ramachandra R. Dasari and Ramachandra R. Dasari and M. S. Feld and M. S. Feld},
  journal={Physical Review Letters},
  year={1997},
  volume={78},
  pages={1667-1670}
}

• K. Kneipp, K. Kneipp, +11 authors M. Feld
• Published 3 March 1997
• Chemistry
• Physical Review Letters

By exploiting the extremely large effective cross sections ( ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}17}--{10}^{\ensuremath{-}16}{\mathrm{cm}}^{2}/\mathrm{molecule}$) available from surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), we achieved the first observation of single molecule Raman scattering. Measured spectra of a single crystal violet molecule in aqueous colloidal silver solution using one second collection time and about $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{5}\mathrm{W}/{\mathrm{cm}}^{2}$ nonresonant near-infrared excitation show a clear ``fingerprint'' of its Raman features between 700 and $1700{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$. Spectra observed in a time sequence for an average of 0.6 dye molecule in the probed volume exhibited the expected Poisson distribution for actually measuring 0, 1, 2, or 3 molecules.