A Controlled and Reproducible Pathway to Dye-Tagged, Encapsulated Silver Nanoparticles as Substrates for SERS Multiplexing Leif O. Brown Stephen K. Doorn 10.1021/la703853e.s002 https://acs.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/A_Controlled_and_Reproducible_Pathway_to_Dye_Tagged_Encapsulated_Silver_Nanoparticles_as_Substrates_for_SERS_Multiplexing/2951095 Silver nanoparticles tagged with dyes and encapsulated within a silica layer, offer a convenient potential substrate for performing multiplexed surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) analysis. In contrast to our earlier work with gold particles, aggregation of silver particles is found to be mostly independent of dye addition, allowing for a reproducible preparation in which aggregation is actively induced by the addition of NaCl. Separating the aggregation step eliminates competitive binding between the dyes and silica-coating reagents, enabling the efficient use of a wide variety of weakly binding dyes to conveniently generate robust, high-intensity SERS substrates at a variety of excitation frequencies. 2008-03-18 00:00:00 gold particles variety silver particles Reproducible Pathway excitation frequencies SERS substrates SERS MultiplexingSilver nanoparticles binding dyes dye addition Encapsulated Silver Nanoparticles aggregation step silica layer