Femtosecond-pulsed optical heating of gold nanoparticles

Abstract

We investigate theoretically and numerically the thermodynamics of gold nanoparticles immersed in water and illuminated by a femtosecond-pulsed laser at their plasmonic resonance. The spatiotemporal evolution of the temperature profile inside and outside is computed using a numerical framework based on a Runge-Kutta algorithm of the fourth order. The aim is to provide a comprehensive description of the physics of heat release of plasmonic nanoparticles under pulsed illumination, along with a simple and powerful numerical algorithm. In particular, we investigate the amplitude of the initial instantaneous temperature increase, the physical differences between pulsed and cw illuminations, the time scales governing the heat release into the surroundings, the spatial extension of the temperature distribution in the surrounding medium, the influence of a finite thermal conductivity of the gold/water interface, the influence of the pulse repetition rate of the laser, the validity of the uniform temperature approximation in the metal nanoparticle, and the optimum nanoparticle size ($~$40 nm) to achieve a maximum temperature increase.