Design of a low-cost equipment for optical hyperthermia

[Display omitted] •A low-cost laser equipment specifically designed for optical hyperthermia applications is presented.•The equipment includes a user interface and a thermostatic chamber that allow controlling and supervising experimental conditions.•Performed experiments indicate that the system can successfully achieve hyperthermia with gold nanoparticles. A laser equipment is presented which has been specifically designed for optical hyperthermia. Such specificity in the design has allowed implementation at costs significantly lower than other options currently available in the market. The developed equipment includes a 808nm laser whose output power is up to 500mW. It also incorporates additional devices that help the user in calibrating the system and supervising it while functioning. The performance of a prototype is tested by running two hyperthermia experiments: one involving gold nanorods, and the other using gold nanostars. The specific set-up of this prototype has allowed laser irradiation with radiated power densities up to 4W/cm2.