Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is considered as the gold standard for nucleic acid detection, but the employed Peltier block also make commercial PCR system bulky, time and energy consumable. Photonic PCR can be a good candidate for replacing the traditional heating strategy because of its excellent photothermal properties. Bifunctional plasmonic magnetic nanoparticles (PMNs) combined the photothermal and magnetic properties, endowing it excellent potential in photonic PCR. PMNs are prepared by gold coating outside the magnetic core, which can be used as the nanoheater for heating PCR solution to 90°C in several seconds upon the irradiation of infra-red light. After PCR, the PMNs can be separated by magnet easily from solution for reducing fluorescence quenching. Furthermore, our PPT-RTPCR platform based on the photothermal effect of PMNs for RNA detection shows limit of detection (LOD) as low as 1.05 copies/μL, which is comparable with the reference commercial PCR at 0.92 copies/μL.
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