Combining different therapies into a single nanomaterial platform is a promising approach for achieving more efficient, less invasive and personalized treatments. Here, we report on the development of such a platform by utilizing nanowires with iron core and iron oxide shell as drug carriers and exploiting their optical and magnetic properties. The iron core has a large magnetization, which provides the foundation for low-power magnetic manipulation and magnetomechanical treatment. The iron oxide shell enables functionalization with doxorubicin through a pH-sensitive linker, providing selective intracellular drug delivery. Combined, the core-shell nanostructure features an enhanced light-matter interaction in the near-infrared region, resulting in a high photothermal conversion efficiency of >80% for effective photothermal treatment. Applied to cancer cells, the collective effect of the three modalities results in an extremely efficient treatment with nearly complete cell death (~90%). In combination with the possibility of guidance and detection, this platform provides powerful tools for the development of advanced treatments.

Heating mediated by iron oxide nanoparticles subjected to near infrared irradiation has recently gained lots of interest. The high optical loss values reported in combination with the optical technologies already...

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