Laser-Triggered Hybridize Magnetic Iron Oxide/Gold Nanoparticles for Cancer Therapy

Gold (Au) nanoparticles are among the most widely studied inorganic nanomaterials in the nano-biomedicine field due to their unique optical properties, chemical stability, and good biocompatibility. Upon laser irradiation, gold nanoparticles with special structures (e.g., shell-like gold) strongly convert the laser light energy into heat due to the localized surface plasmon resonance effect. In addition, gold nanostructures can also be used for multimodal bioimaging, such as photoacoustic imaging and computed tomography imaging. Incorporating of gold nanostructures and magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles into a single carrier can generate a composite with multifunctions such as enhanced photothermal effect, multimodal imaging, magnetically targeted imaging, and therapy. Therefore, this chapter focuses on the magnetic iron oxide/Au nanocomposites exhibiting enhanced absorption in red and near-infrared wavelength regions and enhanced photothermal effect.