Light driven micromotor swarm for tumor photothermal therapy

The collective behavior of living organism including bird, insect and fish has always been a fascinating phenomenon in nature, which is usually involved with hunting, predator avoiding and migrating. In an attempt to mimic the collective behavior of organisms and to achieve practical applications, here we report a highly controllable swarm of test-tube shaped gold-copper micromotors (MMs), where MMs can be driven under near-infrared (NIR) irradiation and aggregate into swarm. With the good photothermal properties of gold segment via surface plasmon resonance effect, the high temperature of the swarm center can be employed for photothermal therapy and tumor cells eradication. This study not only provide a highly controllable platform for tumor phototherapy, but also shed new light on the collective and cooperative behavior of the motors.