Detection and identification of a single DNA base molecule using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)

Nonresonant Raman cross sections of 10^-16 cm^2 per molecule are shown to be related to surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) on colloidal silver clusters at near-infrared (NIR) excitation. The enhancement is found to be independent of cluster sizes between 100 nm and 20. These experimental findings demonstrate that NIR SERS on colloidal silver clusters is an excellent technique for single molecule detection that is applicable for a broad range of molecules including ``colorless'' biomolecules, for example nucleotides in DNA sequencing. As an example, we present the detection of a single adenine molecule without any labeling based on its intrinsic surface-enhanced Raman scattering.