Arkansas Nanomedicine Center, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas 72205, USA.
Institute of Automation and Electrometry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science, Koptyug Avenue 1, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia.
Nat Commun. 2017 Jun 8;8:15528. doi: 10.1038/ncomms15528.
Understanding cell biology greatly benefits from the development of advanced diagnostic probes. Here we introduce a 22-nm spaser (plasmonic nanolaser) with the ability to serve as a super-bright, water-soluble, biocompatible probe capable of generating stimulated emission directly inside living cells and animal tissues. We have demonstrated a lasing regime associated with the formation of a dynamic vapour nanobubble around the spaser that leads to giant spasing with emission intensity and spectral width >100 times brighter and 30-fold narrower, respectively, than for quantum dots. The absorption losses in the spaser enhance its multifunctionality, allowing for nanobubble-amplified photothermal and photoacoustic imaging and therapy. Furthermore, the silica spaser surface has been covalently functionalized with folic acid for molecular targeting of cancer cells. All these properties make a nanobubble spaser a promising multimodal, super-contrast, ultrafast cellular probe with a single-pulse nanosecond excitation for a variety of in vitro and in vivo biomedical applications.
从先进的诊断探针的发展中，我们极大地了解了细胞生物学。在这里，我们介绍了一种 22nm 的 spaser（等离子体纳米激光），它可以作为一种超亮、水溶性、生物相容性的探针，能够在活细胞和动物组织内直接产生受激发射。我们已经证明了一种与 spaser 周围形成动态蒸汽纳米气泡相关的激光模式，导致了巨大的 spasing，其发射强度和光谱宽度分别比量子点亮 100 多倍和 30 倍。spaser 的吸收损耗增强了其多功能性，允许纳米气泡放大光热和光声成像和治疗。此外，硅 spaser 表面已通过叶酸进行了共价功能化，用于癌细胞的分子靶向。所有这些特性使纳米气泡 spaser 成为一种有前途的多模态、超对比、超快细胞探针，具有单脉冲纳秒激发，适用于各种体外和体内生物医学应用。
