| Summary: | Nanomaterials: A semiconductor with an enhanced signature A semiconductor that makes recognizing molecules easier is identified by researchers in China. Yong Yang and co-workers from the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics show that niobium pentoxide can strongly enhance the optical signature of the colored dyes used in biomedical applications. Nanometer-sized features on a rough surface can increase optical fields. This phenomenon can enhance the optical signature used to identify a specific molecule in a technique called surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). But only a few materials, notably noble metals such as gold and silver, have demonstrated useful levels of enhancement. Yang et al. find that niobium pentoxide nanoparticles can be used as a most-active SERS semiconductor substrate to detect the dyes methylene blue, methyl violet and methyl blue. They measured a SERS enhancement factor of over ten million using 633 and 780 nano meter light to detect methylene blue.
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