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Titanium nitride (TiN) is presented as an alternative plasmonic nanomaterial to the commonly used gold (Au) for its potential use in laser rewarming of cryopreserved biomaterials. The rewarming of vitrified, glass like state, cryopreserved biomaterials is a delicate process as potential ice formation leads to mechanical stress and cracking on a macroscale, and damage to cell walls and DNA on a microscale, ultimately leading to the destruction of the biomaterial. The use of plasmonic nanomaterials dispersed in cryoprotective agent solutions to rapidly convert optical radiation into heat, generally supplied by a focused laser beam, proposes a novel approach to overcome this difficulty. This study focuses on the performance of TiN nanoparticles (NPs), since they present high thermal stability and are inexpensive compared to Au. To uniformly warm up the nanomaterial solutions, a beam splitting laser system was developed to heat samples from multiple sides with equal beam energy distribution. In addition, uniform laser warming requires equal distribution of absorption and scattering properties in the nanomaterials. Preliminary results demonstrated higher absorption but less scattering in TiN NPs than Au nanorods (GNRs). This led to the development of TiN clusters, synthetized by nanoparticle agglomeration, to increase the scattering cross-section of the material. Overall, this study analyzed the heating rate, thermal efficiency, and heating uniformity of TiN NPs and clusters in comparison to GNRs at different solution concentrations. TiN NPs and clusters demonstrated higher heating rates and solution temperatures, while only clusters led to a significantly improved uniformity in heating. These results highlight a promising alternative plasmonic nanomaterial to rewarm cryopreserved biological systems in the future.

Titanium nitride nanoparticles have become a research interest due to their distinguished optical and photothermal properties. Furthermore, the search for nanoparticle solutions with tunable nonlinear optical properties for laser‐based applications is critical. More specifically, third order optical nonlinearities such as reverse saturable absorption, optical liming, and self‐focusing are important in the biomedical and electronics fields. The optical nonlinearities of titanium nitride plasmonic nanoparticles are investigated as a function of material concentration in water solutions. Furthermore, the effect of nanoparticle clustering on optical nonlinearities is investigated by fabricating micrometer‐sized clusters of ≈50 nm titanium nitride particles. These studies demonstrate that the nonlinear absorption coefficient increases linearly with concentration. However, clusters require higher concentrations compared to the freestanding nanoparticles to exhibit similar nonlinear absorption coefficient and optical density. Similarly, the optical limiting threshold for titanium nitride nanoparticles appears to be lower compared to the cluster solutions, which is impacted by the collective scattering of nanoparticles and high reverse saturable absorption. In addition, self‐focusing is observed in the continuous resonant regime. This study provides an in‐depth analysis of the nonlinear optical properties of titanium nitride, with relevant consequences for applications such as sensor protection and photothermal therapy.

In this work, we present an extensive comparative study between novel titanium nitride nanoparticles (TiN NPs) and commercial gold nanorods (GNR), both dispersed in water and exposed to a pulsed laser‐induced cavitation process. The optical density, shockwave emission, and bubble formation of these solutions were investigated using shadowgraphy, spatial transmittance modulation, and acoustic measurements. TiN nanoparticle solutions exhibited high stability undser a periodic nanosecond pulsed‐laser irradiation, making these nanomaterials promising agents for high‐power applications. In addition, they demonstrated a stronger nonlinear absorption compared to the GNR solutions, and plasma formation at lower laser energies. This study advances our understanding of the optical properties of TiN and discusses significant differences compared to gold, with important implications for future applications of this material in water treatment, nonlinear signal converting, and laser‐induced cavitation for medical implementations, among others.

Laser speckle imaging (LSI) of mouse cerebral blood flow was compared through a transparent nanocrystalline yttria-stabilized zirconia (nc-YSZ) cranial implant over time (at days 0, 14, and 28, n = 3 mice), and vs. LSI through native skull (at day 60, n = 1 mouse). The average sharpness of imaged vessels was found to remain stable, with relative change in sharpness under 7.69% ± 1.2% over 28 days. Through-implant images of vessels at day 60 appeared sharper and smaller on average, with microvessels clearly visible, compared to through-skull images where vessels appeared blurred and distorted. These results suggest that long-term imaging through this implant is feasible.