Multiple valence states of Fe boosting SERS activity of FeO nanoparticles and enabling effective SERS-MRI bimodal cancer imaging.

Developing novel nanoparticle-based bioprobes utilized in clinical settings with imaging resolutions ranging from cell to tissue levels is a major challenge for tumor diagnosis and treatment. Herein, an optimized strategy for designing a FeO-based bioprobe for dual-modal cancer imaging based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is introduced. Excellent SERS activity of ultrasmall FeO nanoparticles (NPs) was discovered, and a 5 × 10 M limit of detection for crystal violet molecules was successfully obtained. The high-efficiency interfacial photon-induced charge transfer in FeO NPs was promoted by multiple electronic energy levels ascribed to the multiple valence states of Fe, which was observed using ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. Density functional theory calculations were utilized to reveal that the narrow band gap and high electron density of states of ultrasmall FeO NPs significantly boosted the vibronic coupling resonances in the SERS system upon illumination. The subtypes of cancer cells were accurately recognized via high-resolution SERS imaging using the prepared FeO-based bioprobe with high sensitivity and good specificity. Notably, FeO-based bioprobes simultaneously exhibited -weighted MRI contrast enhancement with an active targeting capability for tumors . To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the use of pure semiconductor-based SERS-MRI dual-modal nanoprobes in tumor imaging and , which has been previously realized only using semiconductor-metal complex materials. The non-metallic materials with SERS-MRI dual-modal imaging established in this report are a promising cancer diagnostic platform, which not only showed excellent performance in early tumor diagnosis but also possesses great potential for image-guided tumor treatment.