Suchergebnisse

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an imaging technique currently used in clinical practice to obtain optical biopsies of different biological tissues in a minimally invasive way. Among the contrast agents proposed to increase the efficacy of this imaging method, gold nanoshells (GNSs) are the best performing ones. However, their preparation is generally time-consuming, and they are intrinsically costly to produce. Herein, we propose a more affordable alternative to these contrast agents: Bi2Se3 nanostructured clusters with a desert rose-like morphology prepared via a microwave-assisted method. The structures are prepared in a matter of minutes, feature strong near-infrared extinction properties, and are biocompatible. They also boast a photon-to-heat conversion efficiency of close to 50%, making them good candidates as photothermal therapy agents. In vitro studies evidence the prowess of Bi2Se3 clusters as OCT contrast agents and prove that their performance is comparable to that of GNSs ; J.Y. acknowledges the support from the China Scholarship Council (CSC file no. 201704910867). R.M. acknowledges the support of the European Commission through the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant agreement no. 797945 (LANTERNS). This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under projects MAT2017-83111R, MAT2017-85617-R, and PID2019- 106211RB-I00, by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI16/ 00812), by the Comunidad Autonoma de Madrid (B2017/ ́ BMD-3867 RENIM-CM), and cofinanced by the European Structural and Investment Fund