Carbon dot-sensitized MoS2 nanosheet heterojunctions as highly efficient NIR photothermal agents for complete tumor ablation at an ultralow laser exposure

Currently, one of the major hurdles hindering the clinical applications of photothermal therapy (PTT) and photothermal-chemo combination therapy (PCT) is the lack of highly efficient, readily derived, and irradiation-safe photothermal agents in the biologically transparent window. Herein, we report the first design and rational construction of 0D/2D/0D sandwich heterojunctions for greatly enhanced PTT and PCT performances using 0D N-doped carbon dots and 2D MoS2 nanosheets as the assembly units. The well-matching heterojunctions enabled an additional enhancement in NIR absorbance owing to the carrier injection from carbon dots to MoS2 nanosheets, and achieved a much higher photothermal conversion efficiency (78.2%) than that of single NIR-CDs (37.6%) and MoS2 (38.3%) only. In virtue of the heterojunction-based PTT, complete tumor recession without recurrence or pulmonary metastasis was realized at an ultralow and safe laser exposure (0.2 W cm-2) below the skin tolerance irradiation threshold. Furthermore, by taking advantage of the strong X-ray attenuation and effective drug loading capacity of MoS2 nanosheets, the CT imaging-guided PCT was achieved at 0.1 W cm-2, without inducing noticeable toxic side effects. Our findings can substantiate the potential of a novel 0D/2D heterojunction for cancer theranostics.