Photochemical generation of reactive oxygen species using plasmonic nanoparticles

Abstract

During his lecture entitled “ There is plenty of room at the bottom ”, Richard Feyn- man foresaw the possibility of manipulating material at the scale of individual atoms and molecules. Although Feynman’s conceptual idea of a nanoworld was evoked in 1959, the nanoscience and nanotechnology revolution began 30 years later with the ability to see at the atomic scale with the invention of electronic microscopy and related tools. The size range that has attracted so much attention over these last 30 years is typically from 100 nanometers down to the atomic level. Subsequently, nanomaterials were defined as materials, which have structured components with at least one dimension in this size range. For instance, material with three nanometric dimensions defines a nanoparticle. Among the variety of core materials available to synthesize nanoparticles, noble metal nanoparticles, i.e. gold and silver, have fascinated people for centuries owing to their bright and intense colors, used in particular as decorative pigments in cathedral stained glasses and artworks. The red and yellow colors displayed by gold and silver nanoparti- cles arise from their interaction with light, which one induces collective oscillations of free electrons at the nanoparticle surface in resonance with the light field. This phenomenon is commonly known as the localized surface plasmon resonance. Their remarkable optical properties and the intense electric field generated by plasmonics nanoparticles have brought these nanomaterials in the forefront of nanotechnology research, ranging from photonics to medicine. Shining light on plasmonic nanoparticles to push back limitations of light-activated therapy and so taking part to the societal challenge of cancer treatment improvement defines the global framework of the thesis. Falling within the nanomedicine topic, this one more precisely deals with the development of efficient plasmonic nano-drugs using light to cure diseases. Clearly, nanoplasmonics, which explores how electromagnetic field can be confined over dimension on the order or smaller than the wavelength of light, has come a long way since the stained glass of Roman times