Comparison of gold and silver nanoparticles as active substrates for SERS spectra measurements on liver cancer cells

摘要

This paper measures the surface-enhanced Raman spectra of single liver cancer cells (SMMC-7721) incubated with gold and silver nanoparticles respectively using confocal Raman microspectroscopy technology. The cells incubation with these two substrates is introduced and the detailed chemical components of cells reported by the Raman spectra are analyzed. In order to compare the Raman enhancement effects of these two substrates, the intensity histogram graph of different Raman peaks is ploted and the SERS relative intensity ratios are calculated. The results show that the enhancement effects of Raman spectra using gold nanoparticles as active substrate are more sensitive and prominently higher than using silver nanoparticles. Therefore, gold nanoparticles could be used as biomolecule probe and the SERS spectroscopic technique based on single SMMC-7721 cells incubated with gold nanoparticles would have wide prospect on early diagnosis of liver cancer.