Transition metal dichalcogenide nanospheres for high-refractive-index nanophotonics and biomedical theranostics

Recent developments in the area of resonant dielectric nanostructures has created attractive opportunities for the concentrating and manipulating light at the nanoscale and the establishment of new exciting field of all-dielectric nanophotonics. Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) with nanopatterned surfaces are especially promising for these tasks. Still, the fabrication of these structures requires sophisticated lithographic processes, drastically complicating application prospects. To bridge this gap and broaden the application scope of TMDC nanomaterials, we report here femtosecond laser-ablative fabrication of water-dispersed spherical TMDC (MoS2 and WS2) nanoparticles (NPs) of variable size (5 - 250 nm). Such nanoparticles demonstrate exciting optical and electronic properties inherited from TMDC crystals, due to preserved crystalline structure, which offers a unique combination of pronounced excitonic response and high refractive index value, making possible a strong concentration of electromagnetic field in the nanoparticles. Furthermore, such nanoparticles offer additional tunability due to hybridization between the Mie and excitonic resonances. Such properties bring to life a number of nontrivial effects, including enhanced photoabsorption and photothermal conversion. As an illustration, we demonstrate that the nanoparticles exhibit a very strong photothermal response, much exceeding that of conventional dielectric nanoresonators based on Si. Being in a mobile colloidal state and exhibiting superior optical properties compared to other dielectric resonant structures, the synthesized TMDC nanoparticles offer opportunities for the development of next-generation nanophotonic and nanotheranostic platforms, including photothermal therapy and multimodal bioimaging.