Megha Mehta

Citation

Thesis Title
Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy for environmental and biological analysis

Read article at Massey Research Online:

There are many contaminants and toxins found in real life samples like soil, water, food and body fluids which are challenging to detect and identify with high sensitivity. Ms. Mehta used the fundamentals of Raman spectroscopy for analytical applications to detect, quantify and evaluate chemical and biological toxins. This involved the synthesis of nanoparticles, controlling the formation of nanoparticle aggregates, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, and the development of skills in multivariate analysis. One of the highlights from this research was the demonstration that the combination of omniphobic substrates and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy can be applied to analytes with very different surface adhesion behaviours. This was a bottleneck in the wide-spread application of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy for analytical applications. These results serve as a platform for ultrasensitive molecular detection for applications related to analytical chemistry, diagnostics, environmental monitoring, and national security.

Supervisors
Professor Mark Waterland
Professor Paul Plieger