The spread of antibiotic-resistance poses a great threat, making it a growing need to develop other antibacterial strategies and therapeutics. Recently, owing to their excellent physicochemical properties, copper chalcogenides have received extensive attention as photothermal agents. However, most reports are focused on Cu2-xS nanoparticles, whereas very few water-dispersible Cu2-xSe nanomaterials have been reported due to their difficult preparation process. Herein, water-dispersible and biocompatible cuprous selenide nanosheets (Cu2Se NSs) were synthesized by a simple anion exchange method starting from cuprous oxide nanorods (Cu2O NRs), which could also help avoid any environmental pollution caused by the organic solvent used during synthesis. The obtained Cu2Se NSs showed strong absorption in the second near-infrared window (NIR II) with a good photothermal conversion efficiency as high as ∼61.16%, outstanding among the previously reported NIR II photothermal agents. Interestingly, using Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli as model pathogens, these Cu2Se NSs possess an intrinsic bacteriostatic effect and could inhibit the growth of both bacteria species. Furthermore, both the fluorescent-based microscopy and the bacterial morphology analysis using a scanning electron microscope have demonstrated that incubation of both species of bacteria with Cu2Se NSs under laser irradiation (1064 nm) would lead to complete disruption of the bacterial cell wall. Our work presents a facile method to prepare water-dispersible Cu2Se NSs-, which could serve as highly efficient dual-functional antibacterial agents.
Keywords: Cu2Se nanosheets; NIRII photothermal agents; anion exchange; bacteriostatic agent; photothermal therapy.