Plasmonic Bubbles: From Fundamentals to Applications

Abstract

When illuminated by a resonant laser, noble metal nanoparticles immersed in liquids can efficiently produce a huge amount of heat and rapidly vaporize surrounding liquid, leading to the nucleation of plasmonic bubbles. Plasmonic bubbles are gaining increasing attention and emerged in numerous applications due to their unique properties and excellent controllability, such as microfabrication, micromanipulation, robot propulsion, molecule enrichment, and clinical therapies. In this review paper, the research progress of plasmonic bubbles in the past decade is summarized, including the plasmonic effect‐induced heat generation, experimental methods of plasmonic bubble observation, growth dynamics of plasmonic bubbles, approaches of optomechanical energy conversion via plasmonic bubbles, as well as their applications. This work provides a comprehensive understanding of the state of the art in the field and inspires researchers to explore more promising applications of plasmonic bubbles in different fields, like biology, microfluidics, and micromanufacturing.