Dmitry Kurouski, Heewon Lee, Frank Roschangar, and Chris Senanayake

In the last decade, numerous SERS substrates have been developed, but it is difficult to compare and validate their plasmonic performance. In this overview, the authors discuss the three physical parameters of any new SERS platform that must be measured-morphological characterization, optical scattering (far-field response), and near-field properties-and future prospects for the development of new SERS platforms.