Enhanced Raman and luminescence spectra from co-encapsulated silicon quantum dots and Au-Ag nanoalloys.

We report an approach to enhance simultaneously luminescence and SERS signals with a single excitation wavelength by co-encapsulating silicon quantum dots and Au-Ag alloy nanoparticles encoded with Raman reporter molecules inside polymeric nanoparticles. The SERS-luminescence enhancement exploits the large Stokes shift of silicon quantum dots, which allows 'room' for the display of a Raman spectrum.