Highly sensitive detection of estradiol by a SERS sensor based on TiO2 covered with gold nanoparticles

Andrea Brognara; Ili F Mohamad Ali Nasri; Beatrice R Bricchi; Andrea Li Bassi; Caroline Gauchotte-Lindsay; Matteo Ghidelli; Nathalie Lidgi-Guigui

doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.87

Highly sensitive detection of estradiol by a SERS sensor based on TiO₂ covered with gold nanoparticles

Beilstein J Nanotechnol. 2020 Jul 14:11:1026-1035. doi: 10.3762/bjnano.11.87. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Andrea Brognara^{1

2}, Ili F Mohamad Ali Nasri³, Beatrice R Bricchi¹, Andrea Li Bassi¹, Caroline Gauchotte-Lindsay³, Matteo Ghidelli^{1

2

4}, Nathalie Lidgi-Guigui^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Dipartimento di Energia, Laboratorio Materiali Micro e Nanostrutturati, Politecnico di Milano, via Ponzio 34/3, I-20133 Milano, Italy.
² Department of Structure and Nano/-Micromechanics of Materials, Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung GmbH, Max-Planck-Straße 1, 40237 Düsseldorf, Germany.
³ James Watt School of Engineering, Rankine Building, Oakfield Avenue, G12 8LT, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom.
⁴ now at Laboratoire des Sciences des Procédés et des Matériaux (LSPM), CNRS, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, 93430, Villetaneuse, France.
⁵ CSPBAT, UMR 7244, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, 93430 Villetaneuse, France.

Abstract

We propose the use of gold nanoparticles grown on the surface of nanoporous TiO₂ films as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensors for the detection of 17β-estradiol. Gold deposition on top of a TiO₂ surface leads to the formation of nanoparticles the plasmonic properties of which fulfil the requirements of a SERS sensor. The morphological and optical properties of the surface were investigated. Specifically, we demonstrate that the TiO₂ background pressure during pulsed laser deposition and the annealing conditions offer control over the formation of Au nanoparticles with different sizes, shapes and distributions, yielding a versatile sensor. We have exploited the surface for the detection of 17β-estradiol, an emerging contaminant in environmental waters. We have found a limit of detection of 1 nM with a sensitivity allowing for a dynamic range of five orders of magnitude (up to 100 µM).

Keywords: 17-β estradiol (E2); Au nanoparticles; TiO2 nanostructures; aptamer; plasmonics; sensor; surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS).

Grants and funding

The authors want to thank the FARB project of the Dept. of Energy, Politecnico di Milano and IFMAN acknowledges the Scottish Research Partnership In Engineering (SRPe) for funding the travel grant under PECRE Award 2017/18 and the University of Glasgow (Graduate School Mobility Scholarship).