SERS tags derived from silver nanoparticles and aryl diazonium salts for cell Raman imaging.

The surface functionalization of silver nanoparticles (NPs) by Raman reporters has stimulated a wide interest in recent years for the design of Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) labels. However, silver NPs are prone to oxidation and aggregation, which strongly limits their applications. The design of stable SERS tags based on Ag NPs still represents a major challenge for Raman bioimaging. We address this issue herein by taking advantage of aryl diazonium salt chemistry to obtain stable Ag NPs functionalized by multifunctional polyaryl layers bearing different Raman reporters (-NO