Hybrid Nanoparticles for Applications in Medical Physics

Abstract

Hybrid nanoparticles are of great interest because they combine different cores and shells materials, gathering the advantages and/or distinctive properties to meet several application requirements. The interactions between the metallic and semiconducting domains inside a core-shell nanoparticle may give rise to interesting optical phenomena that are not only determined by their chemical composition but also depend on the geometrical arrangement. In the case of luminescent nanoparticles, the construction of a semiconducting core with a noble metal shell can lead to an enhanced light emission. The use of an emitter shell with a metal core can also result in more intense luminescence. In Medical Physics, these nanoparticles can have potential application for ionizing radiation detection by means of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), thermoluminescence (TL) and radioluminescence (RL), besides applications on new cancer therapeutics such as plasmonic photothermal therapy and photodynamic therapy with x-ray activation, which is performed simultaneously with the traditional radiation therapy treatments. Because the luminescence process involved in these cancer therapeutics and in the ionizing radiation detection/dosimetry are correlated, these new hybrid nanoparticles can be investigated by experimental techniques commonly employed for radiation dosimetry, such as OSL, TL and RL. The main goal of this proposal is the development of new hybrid metal-semiconducting nanoparticles, to perform structural and morphological characterization, the investigations of their luminescent and dosimetric properties. These nanoparticles will be applied for ionizing radiation detection as well as in new cancer therapeutics, thereby contributing for the advancement of the medical physics research field.