A review of the preparation and application of magnetic nanoparticles for surface-enhanced Raman scattering

In recent years, the unique properties of magnetic functional nanomaterials have received considerable attentions and show promising applications in separation, detection, diagnosis, catalysis, environment remediation and so on. Specifically, introducing magnetic nanomaterials (MNPs) into traditional sensing techniques greatly simplifies detection operation and improves sensing performances, which makes magnetic nanomaterial-based sensing techniques become a hot research topic. Compared with other sensing techniques such as chromatography, fluorescence, mass spectrum and electrochemistry, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) displays unique properties of high-sensitivity, fingerprint specificity and nondestructive detection. The introduction of MNPs in SERS has proven to be an efficient way to resolve several critical challenges in practical SERS analysis leading to highly efficient target separation and enrichment, high-sensitive detection and precise outcomes analysis. This makes the MNPs involved SERS analysis a powerful technique with very appealing and promising application in various branches of analytical science. In this review, we first briefly introduced the preparation, encapsulation and surface modification of magnetic nanoparticles, assembly of magnetic nanoparticle–plasmonic substrates and then discussed their applications in SERS analysis, including biomedical application, environmental analysis, food safety and chemical reaction monitoring. Finally, we presented some outlooks on further developments of magnetic nanoparticles in SERS applications.