Visual observation of SERRS from single silver coated silica microparticles trapped and touched within optical tweezers

This contribution reports on the use of surface enhanced resonance Raman scattering (SERRS) in an optical tweezers set-up. Total SERRS emission detected by the use of a video camera is reported as well as the conditions which give the best trapping and the most intense SERRS. Optical tweezing 1 is increasingly becoming the technique of choice for the manipulation and examination of small organic, inorganic, and biological molecules. SERRS would be an effective method for detection of molecular events within the tweezing system. However, combining the two techniques has proven difficult due to known problems in trapping metallic particles in 3D. 2-4 We have demonstrated the ability to record SERRS spectra with total SERRS also being observed via a video camera attached to the optical tweezers set-up. 5