Plasmonics for pulsed-laser cell nanosurgery: Fundamentals and applications

•We review the optical properties of plasmonic nanostructures in an aqueous medium.•We review the heating of nanostructures with short and ultrashort laser pulses.•We review the formation of plasmonic nanobubbles with short and ultrashort laser pulses.•Cavitation is plasma-mediated for off-resonance ultrashort laser pulses, but heat-mediated for longer pulses.•We present a comprehensive review of plasmon-enhanced pulsed-laser cell nanosurgery.

This review describes the fundamental aspects of pulsed laser interaction with plasmonic nanostructures, and its applications to cell nanosurgery, including the destruction, modification or manipulation of molecular, sub-cellular and cellular structures. The review assumes no prior knowledge of the field of plasmonics and begins with a short review of the basic theory of plasmon excitation and optical properties of nanoscale metallic structures. Fundamentals of short and ultrashort laser pulse interaction with plasmonic nanostructures in a water environment are then discussed. Special emphasis is put on the consequences of the irradiation on the surrounding environment of the nanostructure, including heating, low-density plasma generation, pressure wave release and formation of vapor bubbles. The paper is concluded with a review of different applications of pulsed-laser interaction with plasmonic nanostructures for cell nanosurgery, including photothermal therapy, plasmonic enhanced cell transfection, molecular surgery and drug delivery.

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