Non-noble metal photothermal materials have recently
attracted
increasing attention as unique alternatives to noble metal-based ones
due to advantages like earth abundance, cost-effectiveness, and large-scale
application capability. In this study, hierarchical copper sulfide
(CuS) nanostructures with tunable flower-like morphologies and dimensional
sizes are prepared via a fatty amine-mediated one-pot polyol synthesis.
In particular, the addition of fatty amines induces a significant
decrease in the overall particle size and lamellar thickness, and
their morphologies and sizes could be tuned using different types
of fatty amines. The dense stacking of nanosheets with limited sizes
in the form of such a unique hierarchical architecture facilitates
the interactions of the electromagnetic fields between adjacent nanoplates
and enables the creation of abundant hot-spot regions, thus, benefiting
the enhanced second near-infrared (NIR-II) light absorptions. The
optimized CuS nanoflowers exhibit a photothermal conversion efficiency
of 37.6%, realizing a temperature increase of nearly 50 °C within
10 min under 1064 nm laser irradiations at a power density of 1 W
cm–2. They also exhibit broad-spectrum antibacterial
activity, rendering them promising candidates for combating a spectrum
of bacterial infections. The present study offers a feasible strategy
to generate nanosheet-based hierarchical CuS nanostructures and validates
their promising use in photothermal conversion, which could find important
use in NIR-II photothermal therapy.