Ultrasensitive detection of trace substances holds significant
importance in chemical analysis and biochemical sensing. As an exceptionally
robust spectroscopic technique, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy
offers significant advantages in the trace detection of analytes on
various plasmonic noble-metal substrates. The recent integration of
plasmonic nanostructures with nonplasmonic microcavities has emerged
as a promising approach to enhance the sensitivity of Raman detection
further. In this work, we developed an ultrasensitive scanning microsphere-coupled
surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy system and applied it to detect
trace dye molecules. We found that based on conventional surface-enhanced
Raman substrates with Au nanostructure films, the enhancement factor
of Raman intensity can reach the level of ∼109 through
optimizing conditions. By incorporating a scanning silica dielectric
microsphere, the Raman signals can be further enhanced by two orders
of magnitude, resulting in an enhancement factor as high as ∼1011 and corresponding to a detection limit of 10–13 M for an aqueous crystal violet solution. Note that the detection
limit reached the best performance ever recorded. The enhancement
mechanism of dielectric microspheres is explained well by theoretical
simulations. Additionally, our technique allows the spectroscopic
imaging of trace analytes over a region, providing a facile strategy
to fabricate hybrid Raman enhancers for ultrasensitive, highly efficient,
and cost-effective sensing applications.