Subtissue Imaging and Thermal Monitoring of Gold Nanorods through Joined Encapsulation with Nd-Doped Infrared-Emitting Nanoparticles.

Encapsulation of gold nanorods together with Nd-doped fluorescent nanoparticles in a biocompatible polymer creates multifunctional nanostructures, whose infrared fluorescence allows their subcutaneous localization in biological tissues while also adding the ability to measure the temperature from the emitted light in order to better monitor the light-to-heat conversion of the gold nanorods during photothermal therapy.