Public thesis defense Clémentine Gevers - ICTEAM

Design and characterization of SERS substrates based on porous silicon membranes infiltrated with gold nanoparticles

Friday October 2nd, 2026 - 4:15pm - Auditorium BARB94 - Place Sainte-Barbe, 1 - 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve

Antimicrobial resistance is increasingly recognized as one of the major global health threats of the 21st century. The rapid development of resistant pathogens is strongly accelerated by the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, which are often linked to the absence of rapid and reliable diagnostic tools.

To address this challenge, significant research efforts are currently focused on the development of rapid, sensitive, and selective biosensing platforms for pathogen detection. Within this context, porous silicon (PSi)-based optical biosensors have emerged as promising candidates due to their large specific surface area, tunable morphology, and compatibility with microfluidic integration.

One promising strategy to further improve the sensitivity of these biosensors is to replace the reflectometric readout with Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS)-based detection. By decorating the porous silicon matrix with plasmonic nanoparticles, highly localized electromagnetic “hotspots” can be generated, leading to a strong amplification of the Raman signal.

The objective of this thesis is therefore to design and study a porous silicon based SERS substrate as a proof of concept. Rather than focusing solely on achieving record sensing performances, this work aims to better understand the relationship between porous silicon morphology and the SERS response.

Jury members

Prof. Laurent Francis (UCLouvain), Supervisor
Prof. Benoît Macq (UCLouvain), Chairperson
Prof. Denis Flandre (UCLouvain), Secretary
Prof. Sophie Hermans (UCLouvain)
Prof. Luc Henrard (UNamur)
Prof. Michael Sailor (UCSD, USA)

Pay attention : the public defense of Clémentine Gevers will also take place in the form of a videoconference