Controlling and probing heat generation in an optical heater system.

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Understanding how plasmonic nanostructures generate heat upon exposure to light, and thus increase the local temperature of the surrounding medium is important for many applications. Reliable temperature manipulation requires analyzing the local temperature distribution as a function of laser density. In this work, an optical heating system containing silver nano-islands (Ag NIs) is designed to enable heat generation at the micro/nanometer scale andthe local temperature can reach 1458K. The heat generation by Ag NIs exposed to near-IR laser light, andthetemperature distribution, are detected in situ viathe fluorescence intensity ratio technique. It was foundthat thetemperature of the system can be controlled by changingthe excitation power. Furthermore, the temperature-dependent UCL of a single Y2O3:Yb3+/Er3+ microrod is studied by taking advantage of the controllable local temperature in the optical heating system. It was found that the color of the upconversion luminescence can be tuned by managing the local temperature, and conversely, the local temperature at the optical heater can be monitored by observing the color change of the rare-earth microrod. The real-time manipulation of plasmonic heating offers an opportunity to control outcomes of thermo-plasmonic effects, which then enables a myriad of practical applications.