[JACS] Prof. Bin Ren published a paper entitled "Quantifying Surface Temperature of Thermoplasmonic Nanostructures"
Precise measurement of the temperature right at the surface of thermoplasmonic nanoparticles is a grand challenge but extremely important for the photochemical reaction and photothermal therapy. We present here a method capable of measuring the surface temperature of plasmonic nanostructures with surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), which is not achievable by existing methods. We observe a sensitive shift of stretching vibration of phenyl isocyanide (PIC) molecule with temperature (0.232 cm-1/ºC) as a result of the temperature-dependent molecular orientation change. We develop this phenomenon into a method capable of measuring the surface temperature of Au nanoparticles (NPs) during the plasmonic excitation, which is validated by monitoring the laser-induced desorption process of the adsorbed CO on Au NPs surfaces. We further extend the method into a more demanding single living cell thermometry that requires a high spatial resolution, which allows us to successfully monitor the extracellular temperature distribution of single living cell experiencing cold resistance and the intracellular temperature change during the calcium ion transport process.