Research Progress of Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) Technology in Food, Biomedical, and Environmental Monitoring

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript comprehensively reviewed the research progress of SERS, especially its applications in fields of food, biomedicine and environment. This paper would be a good reference for students and researchers of SERS. However, there are several conceptual and editorial issues that should be addressed before the manuscript is suitable for publication.

1. There are too many colons in the manuscript. It is unusual in English.
2. The explanation to schematic diagrams is not enough. For example, there is no any mechanism or principle explanation for Fig 8(a). This kind of problems shows in almost all schematic diagrams.
3. Reference 170 is a review. Citing it in line 753 looks not appropriate.
4. Is reference 208 a correct citing in line 875?
5. In Figure 1, Rayleigh scattering starts from the ground state should be better.
6. In line 302, it should be “blueshift” rather than “redshift”.
7. Some abbreviations do not have their full forms when they first appear, such GA-PLS in line 404, RPD in line 425, UVE-PLS in line 424, and so on.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This review paper presents a comprehensive and well-structured overview of recent advancements in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) technology, with a strong focus on its mechanisms, substrate innovations, and diverse applications across food safety, biomedical diagnostics, and environmental monitoring. The abstract and summary clearly articulate both the current capabilities and future directions of the field, including integration with AI, development of multifunctional substrates, and real-time, on-site detection platforms.

The manuscript is clearly written, technically sound, and well-organized, making it accessible to both specialists and interdisciplinary audiences. It thoughtfully addresses current challenges in the field and proposes realistic and innovative solutions, such as improved substrate reproducibility and advanced data-processing approaches.

Given the depth of analysis, clarity of presentation, and relevance to multiple scientific domains, this paper is a valuable contribution to the literature on SERS.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We sincerely thank you and the reviewer for the positive and encouraging feedback on our manuscript titled “

Research Progress of Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) Technology in Food, Biomedical, and Environmental Monitoring” (Manuscript ID: photonics-3795378).

We are pleased that the reviewer found the paper “comprehensive,” “well-structured,” and a “valuable contribution.” We truly appreciate the recognition of the clarity of presentation, depth of analysis, and interdisciplinary relevance.

As no further changes were requested in this specific review, we have not made any modifications in response to this comment. We thank you again for your consideration, and we hope the manuscript is now suitable for final acceptance.

Sincerely,
RuiSong Xue
On behalf of all authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this review the authors systematically summarized the recent advancements in SERS technology, encompassing its enhancement mechanisms (synergistic effects of electromagnetic and chemical enhancement), innovations in high-performance substrates (noble metal nanostructures, non-noble metal substrates based on semiconductors/graphene, and hybrid systems incorporating noble metals with functional materials), and its interdisciplinary applications. In particular they discussed some main fields of application, food safety, biomedicine and environmental monitoring,
They also discussed future research directions considering multiple existing challenges.

The review is reasonably well written and structured. 

I think that it can be improved including some additional points and fixing some imperfections.

in particular:

-the authors claimed a couple of time "However, noble metal substrates suffer from limitations such as insufficient structural stability, poor oxidation resistance, biocompatibility concerns, inadequate reproducibility, and weak specificity for molecular recognition. " I think this is quite an "overstatement". noble metals could be not fully stable, in particular Ag, but plasmonic nanostructures made of noble metals are extensively used and explored and still represent the most valuable platform for SERS (Au in particular is highly stable!)

-I think the authors should at least mention the application of SERS in other spectral range than the visible, in particular UV-SERS represents an interesting topic where other "not-noble" materials such as Al, Mg, Rh and Ga can find application(see for example :

Nano Lett. 2016, 16,7968−7973.

J. Phys. Chem. C 2019, 123, 33, 20287–20296

J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 134, 1966−1969

ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2014, 6, 17358−17363

Mater. Adv., 2024, 5, 6248–6254

Appl. Phys. Lett. 2012, 101,113116.

 

another important very recent field of application of SERS (in biomedicine) is single molecule SERS for DNA and protein analyses. for example some important works on this high impact future application are:

ACS Nano 2024, 18, 29, 19200–19207

Anal. Chem. 2022, 94, 2, 503–514

Nano Lett. 2023, 23, 7, 2800–2807

Nano Lett. 2023, 23, 7, 2586–2592

 

Author Response

Comment 1:
“The authors claimed a couple of time ‘However, noble metal substrates suffer from limitations such as insufficient structural stability, poor oxidation resistance, biocompatibility concerns, inadequate reproducibility, and weak specificity for molecular recognition.’ I think this is quite an overstatement. Noble metals could be not fully stable, in particular Ag, but plasmonic nanostructures made of noble metals are extensively used and explored and still represent the most valuable platform for SERS (Au in particular is highly stable!)”

Response:
Thank you for pointing this out. We agree that our original statement may have overstated the limitations of noble metals. In the revised manuscript, we have modified the sentence to provide a more balanced perspective

Comment 2:
“The authors should at least mention the application of SERS in other spectral ranges than the visible, in particular UV-SERS represents an interesting topic where other 'not-noble' materials such as Al, Mg, Rh and Ga can find application.”

Response:
We thank the reviewer for highlighting this important point. We have added a new short subsection  briefly introducing UV-SERS and the potential of alternative plasmonic materials such as Al, Mg, Rh, and Ga. We also cited the suggested references  to support the discussion.

Comment 3:
“Another important very recent field of application of SERS (in biomedicine) is single molecule SERS for DNA and protein analyses…”

Response:
Thank you for your insightful suggestion. We have supplemented the biomedical application section with a paragraph discussing single-molecule SERS (sm-SERS) in nucleic acid and protein analysis. We also included the provided references to showcase the current progress.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author's improved the manuscript according to my comments.

It is now ok for publication