Trapping and destruction of virus through dielectric-plasmonic hybrid nanobowtie dimer

Research into the manipulation, inactivation and thermal destruction of cellular and pathogenic microorganisms has been stimulated by the onset of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Indeed, the physical elimination and thermal inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 are considered among the most effective means of ensuring public safety. Thus far, conventional antimicrobial techniques, such as ultraviolet irradiation, chemical disinfection, and other biochemical and pharmaceutical methods, have proven to be highly effective in inactivating microorganisms. However, they also have significant limitations, as long-term harmful effect to human or mammalian cells, long-term limited efficiency and pose problems of drug resistance. In this contest, we propose a hybrid dielectric-plasmonic nanobowtie dimer, comprising two triangular semiconductor elements arranged in a tip-to-tip triangle with a metal layer underneath, capable of trapping and thermally destroying a virus. The trapping of virus with a diameter of 100 nm, such as those representatives of viruses from the Coronaviridae or Paramyxoviridiae virus family, is demonstrated with numerical simulations, calculating a trapping stability >10 with an input power density > 10 mW / μ m2, that leads to a temperature increase >65 K in the trapping site. This temperature is considered sufficient to thermal inactivate and destruction SARS-CoV-2.