Quantification of laser local hyperthermia induced by gold plasmonic nanoparticles

This paper discusses one of the key problems of laser-induced tissue/cell hyperthermia mediated by gold nanoparticles, namely, quantifying and precise prediction of the light exposure to provide a controllable local heating impact on living organisms. The distributions of such parameters as an efficiency factor of absorption, differential and integral absorbing power of a nanoparticle, temperature increment, and Arrhenius damage integral were used to quantify nanoparticle effectiveness in the two-dimensional coordinate space “laser wavelength (λ) × radius of gold nanoparticles (R).” It was found that the fulfillment of required spatial and temporal characteristics of temperature fields in the vicinity of nanoparticle determines the optimal λ and R. As a result, the area in the space (λ × R) with a minimal criticality to alterations of the local hyperthermia may be significantly displaced from the position of the plasmonic resonance. The aspects of generalization of the proposed methodology for the analysis of local hyperthermia using nanoparticles of different shapes (nanoshells, nanorods, nanostars) and short pulse laser radiation are discussed.