Regensburg 2004 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

SYLS: Life Sciences on the Nanometer Scale - Physics Meets Biology

SYLS 3: Symposium "Life Sciences on the Nanometer Scale - Physics Meets Biology"

SYLS 3.57: Poster

Wednesday, March 10, 2004, 16:00–18:30, B

Investigation of the range of electromagnetic Raman-Enhancement in biological Films by means of SAMs — •Gereon Isfort, Micha Kölbach, Dominic Zerulla, and Klaus Schierbaum — Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, IPkM, Materialwissenschaften, AG Physikalische Methoden für Biologie und Medizin, Universitätsstr. 1, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany

Raman-Spectroscopy is a powerful tool for probing the structure and conformation of proteins. Biological environments produce a large number of signals, not easily to assign. A selected enhancement might help to exclude the environmental signals.
The ATR-SPP (Attenuated Total Reflection - Surface Plasmon-Polariton) technique enhances the electromagnetic field at thin metal interfaces. The exponential decrease of the evanescent field confines the range of the enhancement. The Raman activity of the molecules inside this field is strongly accentuated compared to the molecules outside. To prove this theoretically trivial statement under real conditions (not perfect plane metallic layer, unclear microscopic dielectric constants) and to get quantitative results of the decay lengths, we have made a systematic approach by using specific self-assembled monolayers of definitive thickness as spacers in order to vary the distance between the metallic layer and the Raman-active sample deposited on the SAMs.