Table 5.

Benefits and limitations arising from UCST exhibiting polymers grafted onto the surface of (nano-)particles.

Benefits	Limitations
• Metallic nanoparticles enable plasmonic heating in order to trigger the UCST transition of the polymeric particle shell. Under light irradiation, heat can thus be generated in a localized and temporally controlled manner without the use of typically cytotoxic organic photosensitizers. This approach provides high potential for novel drug delivery systems and sensor applications. • The UCST transition of the particle shell can be used either for a targeted assembly of particles (TRSA) or for providing colloidal stability of particles in a large temperature window. • Within particle assemblies, e.g., gold nanoparticle based core-satellite structures, UCST exhibiting polymeric linkers enable a dynamic modulation of the optical properties via plasmonic coupling.	• Even with supposedly analogous particle architectures, the temperature-dependent colloidal stability or assembly behavior can vary strongly (Figure 12, part A) and is therefore difficult to predict. Because of the small number of available studies, the reasons for these variations are not sufficiently understood until now.