3D-Printed Peptide-Hydrogel Nanoparticle Composites for Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy Sensing

Abstract

Precise control over the arrangement of plasmonic nanomaterials is critical for label-free single-molecule surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)-based sensing applications. SERS templates should provide high sensitivity and reproducibility and be costeffective and easy to prepare. Additive manufacturing by extrusion-based 3 dimensional (3D) printing is an emerging technique for the spatial arrangement of nanomaterials and is a method that may satisfy these SERS template requirements. In this work, we use 3D printing to produce sensitive and reproducible SERS templates using a fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl diphenylalanine (Fmoc-FF) hydrogel loaded with silver or gold nanoparticles. The Fmoc-FF template allows the detection of low Raman cross-section molecules such as adenine at concentrations as low as 100 pM.

Review on the advancements of magnetic gels: towards multifunctional magnetic liposome-hydrogel composites for biomedical applications

“…The interest of using plasmonic particles is associated with the phenomenon of localized surface plasmon resonance. This consists in charge density oscillations induced by an externally applied electric field that lead to an enhancement of local electromagnetic field around the particle, which can be used for sensing applications [192,193], or photothermia due to the fast phase loss of the coherently excited electrons via electron-electron collisions [194].…”

Intrinsic Field-Induced Nanoparticle Assembly in Three-Dimensional (3D) Printing Polymeric Composites

“…Ink jetting uses metallic nanoparticles frequently (e.g., gold (Au), copper (Cu), aluminum (Al), and silver (Ag)) for their broad applications in electronics. For example, Almohammed et al used nanofibrous fluorenylme-thoxycarbonyl-diphenylalanine (Fmoc-FF) peptide gel with and without Ag NPs in ink jetting . With a design of peptide and Ag NPs, they demonstrated the alignment of both the fiber and the NPs for use as surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)-based sensing applications.…”

“…SEM images of as printed (a 3 ) Fmoc-FF hydrogel with polymer chain alignment and (a 4 ) Fmoc-FF/Ag nanoparticle showing uniform particle alignment. [Panels (a 1 )–(a 4 ) were reproduced with permission from ref . Copyright 2019, American Chemical Society, Washington, DC.]…”

Wet spinning of a library of carbohydrate low molecular weight gels

“…However, some examples of 3D printing have been described with peptides or nucleosides derivatives, with various resolutions. They are based on solvent or aqueous solution exchange, thixotropy or electrostatic selfassembly 19,25,45,20,21,22 . Using the DMSO-H2O solvent exchange described here, gelation occurs very quickly and makes it possible to obtain quite thin patterns.…”