The feasibility to individually localize and manipulate individual particles flowing in blood can lead to important advances in super-resolution imaging, targeted drug delivery, and other fields. State-of-the-art optoacoustic (OA) tomographic imaging systems provide a unique high frame rate imaging capability in three dimensions, which can be exploited for this purpose if particles are sufficiently absorbing. In this work, we introduce silica-core microparticles with a polypyrrole-gold composite shell deposited with a layer-by-layer approach. Microparticles as small as 2 microns could be individually detected. Laser-induced motion of the particles was also observed, which provides a new means for motion control.
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