Thermo-responsive plasmonic systems: old materials with new applications

Thermo-responsive plasmonic systems of gold and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) have been actively studied for several decades but this system keeps reinventing itself, with new concepts and applications which seed new fields. In this minireview, we show the latest few years development and applications of this intriguing system. We start from the basic working principles of this puzzling system which shows different plasmon shifts for even slightly different chemistries. We then present its applications to colloidal actuation, plasmon/meta-film tuning, and bioimaging and sensing. Finally we briefly summarize and propose several promising applications of the ongoing effort in this field.