Brian D. Piorek1, Carl Meinhart2, Martin Moskovits3, and Sanjoy Banerjee1. (1) Chemical Engineering, UCSB, Engineering II, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, (2) Mechanical Engineering, UCSB, Engineering II, Santa Barbara, 93106, (3) Chemistry and Biochemistry, UCSB, Cheadle Hall, Santa Barbara, CA 93106
We have developed a novel nanoscale fluidic platform for real time sensing of airborne agents. The key enabling technology is the invention we term Free-Surface Fluidics (FSF), where one or more fluidic surfaces, confined by surface tension forces, are exposed to the surrounding atmosphere. This enables the absorption of airborne chemical agents directly into micro/nano fluidic channels for subsequent analysis. We have combined our free-surface fluidic architecture with Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) for direct detection of airborne species.