**Grégory Barbillon**

*Review*

EPF-Ecole d'Ingénieurs, 3 bis rue Lakanal, 92330 Sceaux, France; gregory.barbillon@epf.fr

Received: 4 June 2020; Accepted:16 June 2020; Published: 19 June 2020

**Abstract:** An explosion in the production of substrates for surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has occurred using novel designs of plasmonic nanostructures (e.g., nanoparticle self-assembly), new plasmonic materials such as bimetallic nanomaterials (e.g., Au/Ag) and hybrid nanomaterials (e.g., metal/semiconductor), and new non-plasmonic nanomaterials. The novel plasmonic nanomaterials can enable a better charge transfer or a better confinement of the electric field inducing a SERS enhancement by adjusting, for instance, the size, shape, spatial organization, nanoparticle self-assembly, and nature of nanomaterials. The new non-plasmonic nanomaterials can favor a better charge transfer caused by atom defects, thus inducing a SERS enhancement. In last two years (2019–2020), grea<sup>t</sup> insights in the fields of design of plasmonic nanosystems based on the nanoparticle self-assembly and new plasmonic and non-plasmonic nanomaterials were realized. This mini-review is focused on the nanoparticle self-assembly, bimetallic nanoparticles, nanomaterials based on metal-zinc oxide, and other nanomaterials based on metal oxides and metal oxide-metal for SERS sensing.

**Keywords:** SERS; sensors; plasmonics; zinc oxide; metal oxides; self-assembly; bimetallic nanoparticles
