Polymerase chain reaction have been among the most powerful tools for many biomedical research. However, current PCR technology rely on thermocycling that uses time-consuming and expensive Peltier-block heating. Various methods including mechanical manipulation, microfluidics and nano-sized droplets have been tried and studied to improve and replace these problems. However, there are still several key limitations concerning device fabrication and complex sample preparation. Photothermal effect is a phenomenon in which energy is converted from absorbed photons to thermal energy by nanoparticles. Due to its high spatiotemporal resolution, strong and controllable optical properties, the plasmonic photothermal-based nanoparticles are expected to show great potential for the development of nucleic acid amplification-based biosensors. Here, we introduce a novel plasmonic photothermal-based PCR assay for fast, cost-effective and quantitative detection.
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