Cytotoxicity of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB)-templated silica-coated gold nanorod (CGNR@SiO₂) was confirmed to be severe even after the washing process because of the residual CTAB surfactant. Calcination to eliminate the CTAB template induced dissolution of the gold nanorod (GNR) core and caused a blue-shift in the longitudinal surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) mode of the GNR from the near-infrared to visible wavelength. In contrast, the CTAB template was effectively removed from CGNR@SiO₂ without interference of the plasmonic property of the core GNR by amine-functionalized fluorescence dyes such as methylene blue (MB) and rhodamine B (RB). The RB was more efficient in substituting the residual CTAB through electrostatic interactions than the MB. Moreover, the resulting products exhibited excellent surface-enhanced Raman scattering performance to detect a few cancer cells. The MB and RB molecules as visible light photosensitizer (PS) were activated by near-infrared (NIR) excitation light through transfer of the NIR-driven plasmonic hot electrons from the core GNR to the PS molecules. It is noteworthy that the RB-loaded CGNR@SiO₂ exhibited excellent cancer cell killing efficiency via generation of abundant reactive oxygen species (ROS) under NIR laser irradiation, although the concentration of the intracellular GNR was too low to induce the photothermal effect.

十六烷基三甲基溴化铵（CTAB）模板的二氧化硅包被的金纳米棒（CGNR @ SiO ₂）的细胞毒性也被证实是严重的，因为残留了CTAB表面活性剂。消除CTAB模板的煅烧诱导了金纳米棒（GNR）核的溶解，并导致GNR的纵向表面等离子体共振（LSPR）模式从近红外到可见波长发生蓝移。相反，CTAB模板已从CGNR @ SiO _2中有效去除不会被胺官能化的荧光染料（如亚甲基蓝（MB）和若丹明B（RB））干扰核心GNR的等离子体特性。与MB相比，RB通过静电相互作用更有效地取代了残留的CTAB。此外，所得产物表现出优异的表面增强拉曼散射性能，以检测一些癌细胞。通过将近红外（NIR）激发的等离子热电子从核心GNR转移到PS分子上，近红外（NIR）激发光激活了MB和RB分子作为可见光光敏剂（PS）。值得注意的是，RB-负载的CGNR @ SiO ₂表现出了优异的癌细胞杀伤效率。 尽管细胞内GNR的浓度太低，无法诱导光热效应，但在NIR激光照射下会产生大量的活性氧（ROS）。