Radiofrequency absorption of coated ellipsoidal gold nanoparticles in human tissue

Electromagnetic radiofrequency heating of gold nanoparticles for use in remote hyperthermia cancer treatment has seen rapidly growing interest in the last decade. While most of the focus has been on studying spherical nanoparticles, recent research suggests that using ellipsoidal particles can significantly increase the Joule heating. However, it is still unclear how the presence of ligands affects the electromagnetic absorption in this context. In the present paper, we study the effects of adding a surface coating to ellipsoidal gold nanoparticles, and investigate the change in absorption with respect to coating properties, particle aspect-ratio, and frequency. Both the case of a single nanoparticle and the case of a suspension of nanoparticles are studied. The introduction of a dielectric coating increases the absorption rate for particles with lower aspect ratios and at lower frequencies, potentially improving the flexibility of parameter configurations that can be used in treatment. A thermal analysis reveals that the absorption in the parameter space of lower aspect ratios translate to negligible differential temperature increase, even with the addition of coating. Furthermore, nanoparticles with very large aspect ratios (nanowires) generate less heat with coating compared to no coating. Thus, it is shown that the presence of coating and choice of aspect ratio, have significant impact on the absorption response and must be accounted for in the analysis of ligand-capped nanoparticles. The findings in the present paper provide a valuable tool to optimize the coated gold nanoparticle design parameters, in order to secure clinically useful differential heating.