the body which helps cells send impulses. polydopamine (pda) is obtained through the self-aggregation of dopamine to form a melanin-like substance under mild alkaline conditions. pda has strong nir absorption, good photothermal stability, excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability, and high photothermal conversion efficiency. furthermore, with π conjugated structure and different active groups, pda can be easily combined with various materials to achieve multifunction, such as fluorescence imaging, mri, ct, pa, targeted therapy etc. in view of this, pda and its composite nanomaterials have a broad application prospect in the biomedical field. dopamine-melanin colloidal nanospheres is an efficient near-infrared photothermal therapeutic agent for in vivo cancer therapy. pda can also be modified on the surface of other ptas, such as gold nanorods, carbon-based materials, to enhance the photothermal stability and efficiency in vivo. for example, pda-modified spiky gold nanoparticles (sgnp@pdas) have been investigated for chemo-photothermal therapy. donor−acceptor (d−a) cps donor−acceptor (d−a) conjugated polymers have been investigated for the medicinal purposes. nano-pcpdtbt cps have two moieties: 2-ethylhexyl cyclopentadithiophene and 2,1,3-benzothiadiazole. when the pcpdtbt nanoparticle solution (0.115 mg/ml) was exposed to an 808 nm nir laser (0.6 w/cm2), the temperature could be increased by more than 30 °c. wang et al. designed four nir-absorbing d-a structured conjugated polymer dots (pdots) containing diketopyrrolo-pyrrole (dpp) and thiophene units as effective photothermal materials with the pce up to 65% for in vivo cancer therapy. zhang et al. constructed pbibdf-bt d-a cps by using isoindigo derivative (bibdf) and bithiophene (bt) as ea and ed respectively. pbibdf-bt was further modified with poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(hexyl ethylene phosphate) (mpeg-b-phep) to obtain pbibdf-bt@np ppe with pce of 46.7% and high stability in physiological environment. yang’s group designed pbtpbf-bt cps, in which the bis(5-oxothienopyrrole-6-ylidene)-benzodifurandione (btpbf) and the 3,3′-didodecyl-2,2′-bithiophene (bt) units acting as ea and ed respectively. the d-a cps have a maximum absorption peak at 1107 nm and a relative high photothermal conversion efficiency (66.4%). pu et al. synthesized pc70bm-pcpdtbt d-a cps via nanoprecipitation of ea (6,6)-phenyl-c71-butyric acid methyl ester (pc70bm) and ed pcpdtbt (sps) for pa-guided ptt. wang et al. developed d-a cps tbdopv-dt containing thiophene-fused benzodifurandione-based oligo(p-phenylenevinylene) (tbdopv) as ea unit and 2,2′-bithio-phene (dt) as ed unit. tbdopv-dt cps have a strong absorption at 1093 nm and achieve highly efficient nir-ii photothermal conversion. pedot:pss poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (pedot:pss) is often used in organic electrons and have strong nir absorption. in 2012, liu’s group first reported pegylated pedot:pss polymeric nanoparticle (pedot:pss-peg) for near-infrared photothermal therapy of cancer. pedot:pss-peg nanoparticles have high stability in vivo and long blood circulation half-life of 21.4 ± 3.1 h. the ptt in animals showed no appreciable side effects for the tested dose and an excellent therapeutic efficacy under the 808 nm laser irradiation. kang et al. synthesized magneto-conjugated polymer core−shell mnp@pedot:pss nanoparticles for multimodal imaging-guided ptt. furthermore, pedot:pss nps can not only serve as ptas but also as a drug carrier to load various types of drugs, such as sn38, chemotherapy drugs dox and photodynamic agent chlorin e6 (ce6), thus achieving synergistic cancer therapy.