Measurement of Temperature Distribution at the Nanoscale with Luminescent Probes Based on Lanthanide Nanoparticles and Quantum Dots

It is very challenging to probe the temperature in a nanoscale because of the lack of detection technique. Temperature-sensitive luminescent probes at a nanoscale provide the possibility to solve this problem. Herein, we fabricated a model, which combined two kinds of temperature sensitive nanoprobes and gold nanoparticle heater within mesoporous silica nanoparticles. Upconverting nanoparticles and quantum dots located at different positions inside 110 nm nanoparticles reported different temperatures when the gold nanoparticles generated heat by 532 nm laser irradiation. The temperature difference between two probes with an average distance of 55 nm can reach about 30 °C. Our results prove that the temperature distribution at a nanoscale can be measured, and it will be noteworthy if a nano-heater is applied.