Abstract
To increase the hot-spot area on a surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) nanoparticle for the increment of overall signal intensity in average has become an important task these years. Therefore, this paper proposes a reliable method for the fabrication of gold-shelled corrugated polystyrene nanobeads (GS-CPSBs) to increase the hot-spot area for SERS, and compares the SERS ability of gold nanobowls with two sizes and a GS-CPSB. The results show that GS-CPSBs can carry out the highest enhancement ability among all and have a great biocompatibility with living cells for being a SERS-active biosensor.