Organometallic-constructed Tip-based Dual Chemical Sensing by Tip-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy for Diabetes Detection.

Tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) is capable of probing specific molecular information with high sensitivity, but dual chemical sensing remains a challenge. Another major hindrance to TERS chemical detection in biosamples such as blood is the interference from the strong absorptions of biomolecules. Herein, we report the preparation of an organometallic conjugate TERS tip. We demonstrate that organometallic chemistry can be perfectly coupled with TERS for dual-molecule sensing. The unique Raman signals generated by the organometallic compound circumvents signal interference from the biomolecules in blood, allowing the rapid analysis of two important molecules (glucose and thiol) in ultra-low volume (50 nL) samples. This enabled a correlation between thiol and glucose levels in the blood of non-diabetic and diabetic patients to be drawn.