Fast spatially resolved surface-enhanced Raman spectrometry on a silver coated filter paper using charge-coupled device detection

This paper describes the performance of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) on a silver-coated filter paper using a charge-coupled device (CCD) detector. It is demonstrated that spatially resolved SER spectrometry with satisfactory spectral resolution can be performed with a low integration time. When the analytical information is distributed in space, CCD-SERS provides an effective solution for rapid analysis. For instance, binary mixtures separated by paper chromatography on a silver-coated filter paper can be studied in situ by SERS. The effect of binning on the spatial resolution and on the analytical figures of merit is discussed. Binning improves the sampling efficiency and improves the limits of detection by two orders of magnitude.