Polydopamine (PDA) and silver (Ag) nanoparticles were first generated on chiral silica nanofibers and then detached from silica to form PDA/Ag composites. The as-obtained PDA/Ag showed surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activity but very weak circular dichroism optical activity. Interestingly, the PDA/Ag substrates could make a pair of tyrosine (or phenylalanine) enantiomers show different Raman scattering signal intensities, where the differences could reach 3 times. In contrast, PDA/Ag prepared by using racemic or achiral silica did not exhibit such discrimination performance. Therefore, this research offered a novel SERS-based enantiomeric differentiation method with the assistance of plasmonic metal-containing substrates stemmed from intrinsically chiral inorganic silica.
Keywords: Raman spectroscopy; amino acids; chiral silica; enantio-differentiation; polydopamine; silver.