Gold nanoparticles: Optical properties and implementations in cancer diagnosis and photothermal therapy

Currently a popular area in nanomedicine is the implementation of plasmonic gold nanoparticles for cancer diagnosis and photothermal therapy, attributed to the intriguing optical properties of the nanoparticles. The surface plasmon resonance, a unique phenomenon to plasmonic (noble metal) nanoparticles leads to strong electromagnetic fields on the particle surface and consequently enhances all the radiative properties such as absorption and scattering. Additionally, the strongly absorbed light is converted to heat quickly via a series of nonradiative processes. In this review, we discuss these important optical and photothermal properties of gold nanoparticles in different shapes and structures and address their recent applications for cancer imaging, spectroscopic detection and photothermal therapy.