Study of photothermal effect in core-shell transport microcontainers

Abstract: The theoretical study of laser-induced heating of a transport cargo microcontainer constituting a hollow dielectric microcapsule with water filling and a light absorbing polymer shell is presented. By means of FDTD and FEM techniques, the numerical calculations of optical field spatial distribution inside and near the microcapsules are carried out, and the temporal dynamics of temperature profiles of core-shell microparticles of various morphological types (spheres, ellipsoids, boxes, cubes, cylinders) and microcapsule clusters in different configurations is addressed. The spatial configurations of light absorption regions are shown to be substantially dependent on the morphology of the microcapsules. For isolated microcapsules, the most efficient laser heating is realized in capsules of cubic and cylindrical shapes. When the capsules are aggregated into the densely packed cluster, the characteristic heating depth of the whole assembly is higher for cylindrical microcapsules. In sparse microassemblies the square-shaped capsules are preferable for increasing the efficiency of laser heating.