Tailoring Drug Mobility by Photothermal Heating of Graphene Plasmons

Abstract

We propose a theoretical approach to quantitatively determine the photothermally driven enhancement of molecular mobility of graphene-indomethacin mixtures under infrared laser irradiation. Graphene plasmons absorb incident electromagnetic energy and dissipate them into heat. The absorbed energy depends on optical properties of graphene plasmons, which are sensitive to structural parameters, and concentration of plasmonic nanostructures. By using theoretical model, we calculate temperature gradients of the bulk drug with different concentrations of graphene plasmons. From these, we determine the temperature dependence of structural molecular relaxation and diffusion of indomethacin and find how the heating process significantly enhances the drug mobility.