Contents

**Preface XI**


Preface

medical Sciences.

This book brings some examples of the state-of-the-art applications of Raman spectroscopy in characterization of materials and biomaterials, mainly through intensification processes, such as resonance Raman (RR) and Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). The main goal of this book is to open up to an extended audience the wide possibilities of appli‐ cations of Raman spectroscopy for academic, industrial, biomedical, and environmental pur‐ poses. All authors and editors try to use fluent language in order to make the reading possible for a non-specialized public. In fact, this collective work will be beneficial to stu‐ dents, teachers, and researchers of many areas who are interested to expand their knowl‐ edge about Raman spectroscopy applied to nanotechnology, biotechnology, environmental

This book is organized starting from an introductory chapter that discusses basic aspects of conventional Raman Spectroscopy and also the special cases where the Raman scattering signal can be strongly amplified. Many examples are exploited. The book is organized in five main sections: (i) Introduction, (ii) Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy: Nanosub‐ strates and Applications, (iii) SERS and Raman Spectroscopy: Carbon Nanomaterials, (iv) Raman Spectroscopy of Ferrite Nanomaterials, and (v) Raman Spectroscopy Applied to Bio‐

The second section (ii) has three chapters that focus on preparation of highly sensible nano‐ materials to be used as efficient and reliable platforms for SERS measurements: (a) In the first chapter, the authors (M. Chirumamilla et al.) studied the synthesis and characterization of three-dimensional (3D) nanostructures with multiple branches (MB) as SERS substrates with breakthrough performances in hotspot-mediated ultra-sensitive detection; (b) in the follow‐ ing chapter (Marcin Pisarek et al.), the results of recent investigations into TiO2 nanotubular oxide layers on Ti metal loaded with Ag nanoparticles are investigated. The efficiency of these materials is discussed as surface plasmon resonators for precise surface analytical investiga‐ tions of numerous types of organic molecules at concentrations as low as, e.g., 10-9 M, and (c) finally, the synthesis of precisely controllable anisotropic noble metal nanoparticles (NPs) is reviewed (M. Xu and J. Zhang). This review has demonstrated the correlation of the key mor‐ phological parameters to achieve the strong E-field and ultra-sensitive SERS detection.

In fact, the SERS effect and also surface chemistry in general can be studied at molecular level when the conventional Raman system is joined to a scanning tunneling microscope (STM); in this case, the technique is appropriately named Tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS-STM). The origin of the chemical enhancement has been the subject of much debate over the years. In this chapter (I. Rzeznicka and H. Horino), the effects of adsorption state of a molecule and its orientation over Raman signal are studied from the standpoint of surface

science, inorganic chemistry, in situ and in vivo detection, and health sciences.

