From Single-Particle Thermal Asymmetry to Collective Control: Janus Plasmonic Colloids for Photothermal Applications

Abstract

Janus nanoheaters provide a route to break the spatial symmetry of thermoplasmonic heating and generate directionally biased thermal gradients at the nanoscale. However, in realistic photothermal scenarios, nanoheaters rarely act as isolated objects, but rather operate within colloidal assemblies where collective thermal and electromagnetic effects reshape the local temperature landscape. Here, we investigate how the intrinsic thermal asymmetry of a single Janus plasmonic nanoheater is transformed when moving from isolated particles to planar random arrays under continuous-wave illumination. Using coupled electromagnetic and steady-state heat-transfer simulations, we first quantify the finite spatial range over which the single-particle Janus signature remains detectable. We show that neighboring nanoheaters introduce two competing effects: a nearly symmetric collective thermal background that screens and homogenizes the Janus factor, and short-range neighbor-induced asymmetries that partially compensate this screening when interparticle distances become comparable to the spatial extent of the single-particle thermal anisotropy. We derive a closed-form analytical model for the array-averaged Janus factor as a function of nanoparticle number and surface density. The model predicts the screening-dominated regime from single-particle quantities and identifies deviations associated with near-field neighbor-induced contributions at higher densities. These results demonstrate a central trade-off for biomedical photothermal applications in continuous-wave operation: collective heating is required to reach relevant temperature increments, but it progressively erases the directional Janus character by thermal homogenization. Our framework provides a practical route to predict and rationally design the spatial temperature distribution in plasmonic assemblies of Janus particles.