Many studies have shown that it is important to consider the harmful effects of phenolic hormones on the human body. Traditional UV detection has many limitations, so there is a need to develop new detection methods. We demonstrated a simple and rapid surface-enhanced resonance Raman scattering (SERRS) based detection method of trace amounts of phenolic estrogen. As a result of the coupling reaction, there is the formation of strong SERRS activity of azo compound. Therefore, the detection limits are as low as 0.2 × 10⁻⁴ for estrone (E1), estriol (E3), and bisphenol A (BPA). This method is universal because each SERRS fingerprint of the azo dyes a specific hormone. The use of this method is applicable for the testing of phenolic hormones through coupling reactions, and the investigation of other phenolic molecules. Therefore, this new method can be used for efficient detection.

When Au and Ag were deposited onto two-dimensional polystyrene (PS) templates, a curved bimetallic film composed of nanocap-shaped Au/Ag units was formed. The “Y”-shaped nanogaps and “V”-shaped junctions were tailored between the neighbour nanocaps by changing the bilayer thickness and PS diameters. Compared to the curved Ag, the curved Au monolayer and the flat Au/Ag bilayer on a silicon wafer, the curved Au/Ag bimetallic film exhibited significant SERS enhancement, which was mainly attributed to two important factors, the nanogaps between the adjacent Au/Ag nanocaps and the composite of the Ag/Au bimetallic film. And the nanogaps generated extremely intense local electromagnetic fields and the composite provided more possibilities for the residence of probing molecules.