Wearable and Flexible Nanoporous Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Substrates for Sweat Enrichment and Analysis

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), with high sensitivity to a broad range of molecules, can detect molecular “fingerprints” in a complex substance and thereby offers a promising solution for noninvasive medical diagnostics and personal healthcare monitoring. The eventual realization of such applications relies on SERS substrates with dense and uniform hot spots, good chemical stability, and high mechanical durability. With these criteria in mind, we developed a flexible nanoporous SERS substrate via the in situ synthesis of gold nanostars (AuNSs) on an ion-track-etched polycarbonate membrane. The nanoporous SERS substrate can realize analyte enrichment and exhibit excellent Raman performance by taking the advantage of hot spots on AuNSs. The SERS substrate yields highly repeatable and uniform signals for analytes (e.g., methylene blue) over a wide concentration range from 10–4 to 10–13 M. The flexible SERS substrate even can work well after 2000 times bending and exhibit excellent stability for long-term use. It can be prepared on a large scale with a low-cost and simple fabrication process and can be used repeatedly after cleaning to reduce the use-cost further. On-body experiments prove that the sweat SERS substrate allows effective identification of sweat contents, such as lactic acid and uric acid (UA), and the monitoring of diet-induced variation in sweat UA. The potential of the wearable nanoporous SERS substrates in sweat analysis thus has been demonstrated, opening possibilities for autonomous and noninvasive medical health monitoring.