Advantages of using gold hollow nanoshells in cancer photothermal therapy

Lots of studies have been conducted on the optical properties of gold nanoparticles in the first region of near infrared (650 nm–950 nm), however new findings show that the second region of near-infrared (1000 nm–1350 nm) penetrates to the deeper tissues of the human body. Therefore, using the above-mentioned region in photo-thermal therapy (PTT) of cancer will be more appropriate. In this paper, absorption efficiency is calculated for gold spherical and rod-shaped nanoshells by the finite element method (FEM). The results show that the surface plasmon frequency of these nanostructures is highly dependent on the dimension and thickness of shell and it can be adjusted to the second region of near-infrared. Thus, due to their optical tunability and their high absorption efficiency the hollow nanoshells are the most appropriate options for eradicating cancer tissues. (paper)