Carbon-based materials for photodynamic therapy: A mini-review

Carbon-based materials have been extensively applied in photodynamic therapy owing to the unique optical characteristics, good biocompatibility and tunable systematic toxicity. This mini-review mainly focuses on the recent application of carbon-based materials including graphene, carbon nanotube, fullerene, corannulene, carbon dot and mesoporous carbon nanoparticle. The carbon-based materials can perform not only as photosensitizers, but also effective carriers for photosensitizers in photodynamic therapy, and its combined treatment.