We introduce a novel, facile, rapid, low-cost, highly reproducible, and power-free synthesizable fabrication method of paper-based
silver nanoparticle (AgNP) immersed surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) platform, known as the successive ionic layer absorption and reaction (
SILAR) method. The rough and porous properties of the paper led to direct synthesis of AgNPs on the surface as well as in the paper due to capillary effects, resulting in improved plasmon coupling with interparticles and interlayers. The proposed SERS platform showed an enhancement factor of 1.1 × 10(9), high reproducibility (relative standard deviation of 4.2%), and 10(-12) M
rhodamine B highly sensitive detection limit by optimizing the
SILAR conditions including the concentration of the reactive
solution (20/20 mM/mM AgNO3/NaBH4) and the number of
SILAR cycles (six). The applicability of the SERS platform was evaluated using two samples including human cervical fluid for clinical diagnosis of human papillomavirus (HPV)
infection, associated with
cervical cancer, and a
malachite green (MG)
solution for fungicide and
parasiticide in aquaculture, associated with human
carcinogenesis. The AgNP-immersed SERS-functionalized platform using the
SILAR technique allowed for high chemical structure sensitivity without additional tagging or chemical modification, making it a good alternative for early clinical diagnosis of
HPV infection and detection of MG-activated human
carcinogenesis.