Abstract.Despite the availability of different antibiotics, bacterial infections are still one of the leading causes of hospitalization and mortality. The clinical failure of antibiotic treatment is due to a general poor antibiotic penetration to bacterial infection sites as well as the development of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. In the case of skin infection, the wound is covered by exudate, making it impermeable to topical antibiotics. The development of a flexible patch allowing a rapid and highly efficient treatment of subcutaneous wound infections via photothermal irradiation is presented here. The skin patch combines the near-infrared photothermal properties of a gold nanohole array formed by self-assembly of colloidal structures on flexible polyimide films with that of reduced graphene oxide nanosheets for laser-gated pathogen inactivation. In vivo tests performed on mice with subcutaneous skin infection and treated with the photothermal skin patch show wound healing of the infected site, while nontreated areas result

A flexible nanoheater device, consisting of a Au nanohole array coated with reduced graphene oxide–polyethyleneimine, was applied to capture and eradicate both Gram-positive and Gram negative planktonic bacteria and their biofilms.