Photothermally responsive gold nanoparticles conjugated polymer- grafted porous hollow silica nanocapsules David Paramelle,† Sergey Gorelik, Ye Liu* and Jatin Kumar†* Supplementary Information Materials Hollow silica nanoparticles (HSi) with an average diameter of 150 nm were synthesised ac- cording to the procedure described in literature. 1, 2 The RAFT agent 3- benzylsulfanylthiocarbonylsufanyl-propionic acid (BSPA) was synthesised according to a previously reported protocol. 3 Inhibitor was removed from all monomers by passing it over a short layer of basic alumina. Gold nanoparticles of 5nm diameter stabilised in citrate buffer purchased from British Biocell (BBInternational Ltd., UK) were concentrated with NanoSep filters 10 KDa to about 0.5 µM of nanoparticles. Fetal bovine serum (FBS) and Dulbecco's modified eagle medium (DMEM) were purchased from Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.. All other chemicals were used as received from the manufacturers unless otherwise stated. Instruments & Characterisation Transmission electron micrographs (TEM) were obtained with a Philips CM300 FEGTEM instrument at an accelerating voltage of 300 kV. The sample was prepared by placing a drop of the sample dispersed in deionised water on holey carbon coated 200 mesh copper grids for 30 seconds, dried with filter paper, then left to completely dry in a desiccator overnight. Thermogravimetric analyses (TGA) were performed on a TA Instruments Q500 under N 2 gas with a flowrate of 60 mL.min -1 , a heating rate of 20 °C.min -1 from 100 °C to 600 °C. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) was performed using Malvern ZetasizerNano ZS with a HeNe laser (633 nm) to measure the particle size and distribution in solution. The zeta poten- tial of the water dispersible nanoparticles was performed by the same instrument through ap- plication of voltage stimulus ranging from -100 to 100 mV between the electrodes of the dual purpose cuvette. A statistical average of three readings per sample was taken for the DLS and zeta potential measurements. UV spectra were acquired using the Spectra Max Plus spectrophotometer (Molecular Devic- es, Wokingham, UK) and 384 wells plates from Corning (Lowell, US). Fluorescence emission spectra were recorded on a Perkin–Elmer LS55 Fluorescence Spec- troscopy instrument fitted with a R928-sensitive sample photomultiplier. Laser experiments were conducted with a 532 nm AOTK Superd-M DPSS laser with 70mW output power in quartz cuvettes. The laser beam diameter was 1cm at the centre of the cuvette using a defo- cusing lens (focal length 30cm) while the intensity of the laser light incident to the front wall of the cuvette was reduced to about 10mW/cm 2 using an ND filter with OD=1. In situ fluo- rescence measurements were performed with using an Avantes ULS3648RS-USB2 spec- trometer placed at 90° to the laser beam. The molecular weight of etched polymer chains was determined by size exclusion chroma- torgraphy with a Waters 2690 apparatus with a refractive index detector; mobile phase: 0.05 M sodium nitrate with 0.02% sodium azide in water, calibrated with poly(ethylene oxide) standards. Electronic Supplementary Material (ESI) for ChemComm. This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2016