Nanoscience

The authors’ lab specializes in fabricating bright fluorescent diamond nanocrystals. The paticularity of these nanocrystals is that they contain a high concentration of punctual colour centre defects. When exposed to green light, these centres emit a red fluorescent light, useful for sub-cellular imaging applications. Unlike ordinary fluorescent material, these centres can also be turned into hypersensitive nanoprobes to detect temperature and magnetic field, via optical manipulation and detection.

By introducing gold nanoparticles to the nanocrystal, the authors make it possible to convert the incoming laser light into extremely localized heat. These gold nanoparticles can therefore act as switchable nanoheaters for therapies based on delivering intense and precise heat to cancerous cells, using a laser as the energy source. The novelty of this study is that it shows that it is possible to use diamond nanocrystals as hypersensitive temperature sensors with a high spatial resolution — ranging from 10 to 100 nanometers — to monitor the amount of heat delivered to cancer cells.

Story Source:

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Springer. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:

1. Pei-Chang Tsai, Oliver Y Chen, Yan-Kai Tzeng, Yuen Yung Hui, Jiun You Guo, Chih-Che Wu, Ming-Shien Chang, Huan-Cheng Chang.Gold/diamond nanohybrids for quantum sensing applications. EPJ Quantum Technology, 2015; 2 (1) DOI: 10.1140/epjqt/s40507-015-0031-3

Springer. (2015, July 31). Gold-diamond nanodevice for hyperlocalized cancer therapy: Gold nanorods can be used as remote controlled nanoheaters delivering the right amount of thermal treatment to cancer cells, thanks to diamond nanocrystals used as temperature sensors. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 13, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150731103651.htm