Abstract

Light is a particularly appealing tool for on-demand drug delivery due to its noninvasive nature, ease of application, and exquisite temporal and spatial control. Great progress is achieved in the development of novel light-driven drug delivery strategies with both breadth and depth. Light-controlled drug delivery platforms can be generally categorized into three groups: photochemical, photothermal, and photoisomerization-mediated therapies. Various advanced materials, such as metal nanoparticles, metal sulfides and oxides, metal–organic frameworks, carbon nanomaterials, upconversion nanoparticles, semiconductor nanoparticles, stimuli-responsive micelles, polymer- and liposome-based nanoparticles are applied for light-stimulated drug delivery. In view of the increasing interest in on-demand targeted drug delivery, the development of light-responsive systems with a focus on recent advances, key limitations, and future directions is reviewed.