Noble metal nanoparticles (NPs) have been known to display unique localized surface plasmon resonance property, which could be utilized to significantly enhance the optical responses of metal NPs themselves and nearby chromophores.  In this talk, I will present the efforts of our group on development of various metal-based nanoparticles that display plasmon enhanced fluorescence, photothermal effects, two-photon excitation emission and singlet oxygen generation of metal nanoparticles themselves and external photosensitizers as well as their potential applications in cancer therapy. Taking advantages of the giant local electric amplification of plasmon coupled nanostructures, we have recently developed a new type of aggregation induced emission (AIE) based on aggregation of metal-chromophore conjugates, which display enhanced excitation efficiency and emission quantum yield at the same time. We have developed various schemes that display significantly enhanced photoactivities to allow applications for multimodal imaging and synergistic chemotherapy, photothermal therapy and photodynamic therapy, which might open a new venue to explore safe and non-invasive theranostics for cancers.

Prof. Qing-Hua Xu (徐清华) received his B.S. from Zhejiang University (1993), M.S. from Peking University (1996) and University of Chicago (1997), Ph.D. from UC Berkeley (2001). He conducted the postdoctoral research at Stanford University and UC Santa Barbara before he joined National University of Singapore to start the independent research career in 2005. His primary research interest is development of various light-based applications such as sensing, imaging, photosensitization and optoelectronics using various low-dimension materials, as well as investigation of the underlying fundamental mechanisms using various novel optical spectroscopy and imaging techniques. So far he has published ~230 peer reviewed articles with total citations of >15,000 times and H-index of 74.