Spaser as a biological probe

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.

[1]  Mustafa Sarimollaoglu,et al.  In vivo photoacoustic flow cytometry for early malaria diagnosis , 2016, Cytometry. Part A : the journal of the International Society for Analytical Cytology.

[2]  Philipp Liehm,et al.  Lasing within Live Cells Containing Intracellular Optical Microresonators for Barcode-Type Cell Tagging and Tracking. , 2015, Nano letters.

[3]  Thierry Biben,et al.  Kinetics of nanobubble generation around overheated nanoparticles. , 2014, Physical review letters.

[4]  Seok Hyun Yun,et al.  Intracellular microlasers , 2015, Nature Photonics.

[5]  Thomas Kelly,et al.  Synergistic enhancement of selective nanophotothermolysis with gold nanoclusters: Potential for cancer therapy , 2005, Lasers in surgery and medicine.

[6]  Vladimir P. Zharov,et al.  Photothermal detection of local thermal effects during selective nanophotothermolysis , 2003 .

[7]  Johannes Boneberg,et al.  Thermodynamics of nanosecond nanobubble formation at laser-excited metal nanoparticles , 2011 .

[8]  Mark I. Stockman,et al.  The spaser as a nanoscale quantum generator and ultrafast amplifier , 2009, 0908.3559.

[9]  Valery Tuchin,et al.  Gold nanoshell photomodification under a single-nanosecond laser pulse accompanied by color-shifting and bubble formation phenomena , 2008, Nanotechnology.

[10]  Charles Joenathan,et al.  Laser-induced explosion of gold nanoparticles: potential role for nanophotothermolysis of cancer. , 2006, Nanomedicine.

[11]  Sanjiv S Gambhir,et al.  Advanced contrast nanoagents for photoacoustic molecular imaging, cytometry, blood test and photothermal theranostics. , 2011, Contrast media & molecular imaging.

[12]  Koji Fujita,et al.  Wavelength-tunable Spasing in the Visible , 2022 .

[13]  T. Basova,et al.  Characterization of the structure and stimulated emission of spherical and cylindrical spasers , 2016, 2016 Days on Diffraction (DD).

[14]  D. Chiu,et al.  Hybrid semiconducting polymer dot-quantum dot with narrow-band emission, near-infrared fluorescence, and high brightness. , 2012, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[15]  J. Gagné.  Literature Review , 2018, Journal of ultrasound in medicine : official journal of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine.

[16]  V. Shalaev,et al.  Demonstration of a spaser-based nanolaser , 2009, Nature.

[17]  Daxiang Cui,et al.  Folic acid-conjugated silica-modified gold nanorods for X-ray/CT imaging-guided dual-mode radiation and photo-thermal therapy. , 2011, Biomaterials.

[18]  R. Nitschke,et al.  Quantum dots versus organic dyes as fluorescent labels , 2008, Nature Methods.

[19]  E. Furlani,et al.  Analysis of pulsed laser plasmon-assisted photothermal heating and bubble generation at the nanoscale. , 2012, Lab on a chip.

[20]  Paul Mulvaney,et al.  Synthesis of Nanosized Gold−Silica Core−Shell Particles , 1996 .

[21]  E. Lukianova-Hleb,et al.  Experimental techniques for imaging and measuring transient vapor nanobubbles. , 2012, Applied physics letters.

[22]  D. Wen.  Intracellular hyperthermia: Nanobubbles and their biomedical applications , 2009, International journal of hyperthermia : the official journal of European Society for Hyperthermic Oncology, North American Hyperthermia Group.

[23]  Vladimir P. Zharov,et al.  Photothermal guidance for selective photothermolysis with nanoparticles , 2004, SPIE BiOS.

[24]  Xudong Fan,et al.  The potential of optofluidic biolasers , 2014, Nature Methods.

[25]  V. S. Letokhov,et al.  Laser biology and medicine , 1985, Nature.

[26]  Valery V. Tuchin,et al.  Optical amplification of photothermal therapy with gold nanoparticles and nanoclusters , 2006 .

[27]  Lawrence A. Yannuzzi,et al.  Fluorescein and ICG Angiography: Textbook and Atlas , 1998 .

[28]  Xiang Zhang,et al.  Explosives detection in a lasing plasmon nanocavity. , 2014, Nature nanotechnology.

[29]  Vladimir P Zharov,et al.  Self-assembling nanoclusters in living systems: application for integrated photothermal nanodiagnostics and nanotherapy. , 2005, Nanomedicine : nanotechnology, biology, and medicine.

[30]  M. Stockman.  Nanoplasmonics: The physics behind the applications , 2011 .

[31]  D. Balding,et al.  HLA Sequence Polymorphism and the Origin of Humans , 2006 .

[32]  Hisataka Kobayashi,et al.  Toxicity of Organic Fluorophores Used in Molecular Imaging: Literature Review , 2009, Molecular imaging.

[33]  A. Plekhanov,et al.  Gold nanostructure formation in the photonic crystal matrix by means of MOCVD technique , 2013 .

[34]  V. Zharov,et al.  Golden carbon nanotubes as multimodal photoacoustic and photothermal high-contrast molecular agents. , 2009, Nature nanotechnology.

[35]  Vladilen S. Letokhov,et al.  Generation of Light by a Scattering Medium with Negative Resonance Absorption , 1968 .

[36]  V. Zharov,et al.  Nanotheranostics of circulating tumor cells, infections and other pathological features in vivo. , 2013, Molecular pharmaceutics.

[37]  Gennady Shvets,et al.  Plasmonic Nanolaser Using Epitaxially Grown Silver Film , 2012, Science.

[38]  Vladimir P. Zharov,et al.  Ultrasharp nonlinear photothermal and photoacoustic resonances and holes beyond the spectral limit , 2011, Nature photonics.

[39]  Lihong V. Wang,et al.  Photoacoustic Tomography: In Vivo Imaging from Organelles to Organs , 2012, Science.

[40]  Jerome Mertz,et al.  Nonlinear Midinfrared Photothermal Spectroscopy Using Zharov Splitting and Quantum Cascade Lasers , 2014, ACS photonics.

[41]  D. Bergman,et al.  Surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation: quantum generation of coherent surface plasmons in nanosystems. , 2003, Physical review letters.

[42]  J. Hafner,et al.  Tunable Plasmonic Nanoprobes for Theranostics of Prostate Cancer , 2011, Theranostics.

[43]  Alper Kiraz,et al.  In vitro and in vivo biolasing of fluorescent proteins suspended in liquid microdroplet cavities. , 2014, Lab on a chip.

[44]  Vladimir P. Zharov,et al.  Photothermal and accompanied phenomena of selective nanophotothermolysis with gold nanoparticles and laser pulses , 2008 .

[45]  Vladimir P. Zharov,et al.  Microbubbles-overlapping mode for laser killing of cancer cells with absorbing nanoparticle clusters , 2005 .

[46]  Brahim Lounis,et al.  Photothermal Imaging of Nanometer-Sized Metal Particles Among Scatterers , 2002, Science.

[47]  Vladimir P Zharov,et al.  Quantum dots as multimodal photoacoustic and photothermal contrast agents. , 2008, Nano letters.

[48]  V. Zharov,et al.  Photothermal nanodrugs: potential of TNF-gold nanospheres for cancer theranostics , 2013, Scientific Reports.

[49]  Ekaterina I. Galanzha,et al.  Circulating Tumor Cell Detection and Capture by Photoacoustic Flow Cytometry in Vivo and ex Vivo , 2013, Cancers.

[50]  Thomas Kelly,et al.  In vivo magnetic enrichment and multiplex photoacoustic detection of circulating tumour cells. , 2009, Nature nanotechnology.

[51]  Chih-Kang Shih,et al.  All-color plasmonic nanolasers with ultralow thresholds: autotuning mechanism for single-mode lasing. , 2014, Nano letters.

[52]  Reinhard Niessner,et al.  Strong size-dependent photoacoustic effect on gold nanoparticles by laser-induced nanobubbles , 2010 .

[53]  Z. Valy Vardeny,et al.  Random lasing in human tissues , 2004 .

[54]  Mazen A. Juratli,et al.  Nonlinear photoacoustic signal amplification from single targets in absorption background , 2013, Photoacoustics.

[55]  R. W. Christy,et al.  Optical Constants of the Noble Metals , 1972 .