Local heating with lithographically fabricated plasmonic titanium nitride nanoparticles.

Titanium nitride is considered a promising alternative plasmonic material and is known to exhibit localized surface plasmon resonances within the near-infrared biological transparency window. Here, local heating efficiencies of disk-shaped nanoparticles made of titanium nitride and gold are compared in the visible and near-infrared regions numerically and experimentally with samples fabricated using e-beam lithography. Results show that plasmonic titanium nitride nanodisks are efficient local heat sources and outperform gold nanodisks in the biological transparency window, dispensing the need for complex particle geometries.