Gold nanostars for cancer cell-targeted SERS-imaging and NIR light-triggered plasmonic photothermal therapy (PPTT) in the first and second biological windows

), ascorbic acid (AA) and (1-hexadecyl) trimethylammonium chloride (CTAC) as growth solutions. The gold nanostars were further designed to be multifunctional nanoagents by labeling Raman molecules and then conjugating arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD), which can serve as cancer cell-targeted SERS-imaging tags and photothermal nanoagents in both the NIR-I and NIR-II windows. The investigation of in vitro SERS-mapping and PPTT of the A549 human lung adenocarcinoma cells indicates that the proposed multifunctional gold nanostars have great potential for a wide spectrum of light-mediated applications, such as optical imaging and image-guided phototherapy in both the NIR-I and NIR-II biological windows.