Imaging Local Heating and Thermal Diffusion of Nanomaterials with Plasmonic Thermal Microscopy

Abstract

Measuring local heat generation and dissipation in nanomaterials is critical for understanding the basic properties and developing applications of nanomaterials, including photothermal therapy and joule heating of nanoelectronics. Several technologies have been developed to probe local temperature distributions in nanomaterials, but a sensitive thermal imaging technology with high temporal and spatial resolution is still lacking. Here, we describe plasmonic thermal microscopy (PTM) to image local heat generation and diffusion from nanostructures in biologically relevant aqueous solutions. We demonstrate that PTM can detect local temperature change as small as 6 mK with temporal resolution of 10 μs and spatial resolution of submicrons (diffraction limit). With PTM, we have successfully imaged photothermal generation from single nanoparticles and graphene pieces, studied spatiotemporal distribution of temperature surrounding a heated nanoparticle, and observed heating at defect sites in graphene. We further show that the PTM images are in quantitative agreement with theoretical simulations based on heat transport theories.

Dual-Functional Plasmonic Photothermal Biosensors for Highly Accurate Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Detection

“…In this work, the AuNIs that matched the laser excitation wavelength at 532.2 nm (±0.2 nm) were utilized for the PPT heating. 32 It is worth noting that under the ATR conditions with a 72°inclined incident angle the plasmonic resonance wavelength for LSPR sensing transduction redshifted to 580 nm due to the prism coupling and the inclined angle of incidence (Figure 1e). 30 The phase changes caused by a local variation of LSPR conditions were confined in a narrow wavelength region from 578 to 582 nm.…”

Electron transfer across a thermal gradient

“…More recently, noise (23)(24)(25)(26), nonlinear response (e.g., negative differential heat conductance), and control by external stimuli (27,28) have been examined. An important driving factor in this growing interest is the development of experimental capabilities that greatly improve on the ability to gauge temperatures (and "effective" temperatures in nonequilibrium systems) with high spatial and thermal resolutions (29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43) and to infer from such measurement the underlying heat transport processes. In particular, vibrational energy transport/ heat conduction in molecular layers and junctions has recently been characterized using different probes (6,19,(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49)(50)(51)(52).…”

Improved Margins Detection of Regions Enriched with Gold Nanoparticles inside Biological Phantom

“…Our method is intended to be better than these techniques. However, for post-operation methods, a resolution of a few microns and even smaller can be achieved by nano-microscopy using targeted GNPs in cancerous cells [13,38]. …”