Cell perforation mediated by plasmonic bubbles generated by a single near infrared femtosecond laser pulse

We report on transient membrane perforation of living cancer cells using plasmonic gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) enhanced single near infrared (NIR) femtosecond (fs) laser pulse. Under optimized laser energy fluence, single pulse treatment (τ = 45 fs, λ = 800 nm) resulted in 77% cell perforation efficiency and 90% cell viability. Using dark field and ultrafast imaging, we demonstrated that the generation of submicron bubbles around the AuNPs is the necessary condition for the cell membrane perforation. AuNP clustering increased drastically the bubble generation efficiency, thus enabling an effective laser treatment using low energy dose in the NIR optical therapeutical window. Schematic representation of single femtosecond laser pulse plasmonic bubble generation in the vicinity of a cell. A single near‐infrared ultrafast laser pulse was used to generate submicron bubbles around gold plasmonic nanoparticles attached to the membrane of cancer cells. It is shown that those bubbles act as key mediators for the transient perforation of the cell membrane. High cell viability was maintained. The proposed treatment can be the basis for the development of gene and drug delivery applications.