Chitosan reduced in-situ synthesis of gold nanoparticles on paper towards fabricating highly sensitive, stable uniform SERS substrates for sensing applications.

Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) is a powerful surface-sensitive technique for molecular analysis. Its use is limited due to high cost, non-flexible rigid substrates such as silicon, alumina or glass and less reproducibility due to non-uniform surface. Recently, paper-based SERS substrates, a low-cost and highly flexible alternative, received significant attention.