Oxygen vacancy-enhanced photothermal performance and reactive oxygen species generation for synergistic tumour therapy

Abstract

Vacancy engineering is a robust strategy to tune nanomaterials’ electronic structures for physicochemical properties regulation. Here, we report and realize the first oxygen vacancy-enhanced photothermal and oxidation dual-induced synergistic tumour therapy using oxygen vacancies enriched MnO₂@Au nanoconstructs as the therapeutic agent with a high photothermal effect, enhanced highly-toxic superoxide radical generation, good biocompatibility and tumour microenvironment regulation capacity. Our work opens up a new route for cancer nanotheranostics by regulating the electronic structure of nanomaterials resulting in enhanced efficacy.