Plasma-Engineered Plasmonic Nanoparticle-Based Stretchable Nanocomposites as Sensitive Wearable SERS Sensors

Stretchable surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-active metal–organic nanocomposites with exceptional optical, mechanical, and electrical properties have attracted a lot of attention for emerging applications such as wearable devices, smart energy storage, and point-of-care (POC) personal sensing. However, the current fabrication of SERS-active metal–organic nanocomposites usually involves time-consuming procedures, expensive and toxic chemicals, and harsh conditions such as high temperature, vacuum conditions, and strong acid–base reactions. Here, we developed a simple, low-cost, and environmentally friendly fabrication of stretchable porous poly(styrene–butadiene–styrene) (SBS)-based metal–organic nanocomposites with exceptional SERS enhancement and mechanical stability using a scalable and easy-to-operate microplasma engineering under ambient conditions. SERS-active polyhedral silver nanoparticles (polyAgNPs) with enormous localized electromagnetic field-induced hot spots can be synthesized and deposited on the elastic SBS fiber-based porous substrates with high density and uniformity by the plasma synthesis. The plasma-engineered polyAgNP-SBS nanocomposites show outstanding SERS enhancement factor (EF), low detection limit and wide detection range for SERS-based detection of cancer biomarkers. Our work provides a step for scalable and controlled engineering for stretchable metal–organic nanocomposites and an understanding of SERS properties of plasmonic nanostructures used for emerging applications such as optoelectronics, biomedical sensing, and clean energy.