Strongly Interacting Nanoferrites for Magnetic Particle Imaging and Spatially Resolved Thermometry.

High-crystal-quality nanoferrites with short surface ligands (oleic acid) were recently shown to exhibit enhanced sensitivity and spatial resolution, likely due to chain formation (uniaxial assemblies of particles) for magnetic particle imaging (MPI). Here, we develop a simple one-pot thermal decomposition approach to produce ferrite (iron oxide) magnetic nano-objects (MNOs) that strongly interact magnetically and have good synthetic reproducibility. The ferrite MNOs were physically characterized by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and dynamic light scattering. The MNOs were magnetically characterized by magnetometry and magnetic particle spectroscopy (MPS) to study their interactions, dynamics, and suitability for spatially resolved magnetic thermometry. The MNOs were synthesized in a range of sizes between 12 nm and 27 nm, showing that MNOs below a minimum size do not exhibit dynamic interactions/significant increased response and that a larger field is required for chain formation as size increases. In addition to size effects, we explore the role of ligand length, environment (liquid vs solid), and concentration on the proposed chain formation. The experimental results were then correlated to micromagnetic simulations to gain further insight into the formation of chains. Compared to some existing MPI tracers, our ferrite MNOs exhibit enhanced signal (up to about 37×) and spatial resolution (up to about 9×) under certain limited (ferrite-MNO optimal) field and frequency conditions used. MPS as a function of temperature and drive field amplitude was performed, showing promise for spatially resolved thermometry. These results confirm the importance of tuning the frequency and amplitude of the drive field for optimal imaging/thermal performance.

Thermosensitivity through Exchange Coupling in Ferrimagnetic/Antiferromagnetic Nano-Objects for Magnetic-Based Thermometry.

Temperature is a fundamental physical quantity important to the physical and biological sciences. Measurement of temperature within an optically inaccessible three-dimensional (3D) volume at microscale resolution is currently limited. Thermal magnetic particle imaging (T-MPI), a temperature variant of magnetic particle imaging (MPI), hopes to solve this deficiency. For this thermometry technique, magnetic nano-objects (MNOs) with strong temperature-dependent magnetization (thermosensitivity) around the temperature of interest are required; here, we focus between 200 K and 310 K. We demonstrate that thermosensitivity can be amplified in MNOs consisting of ferrimagnetic (FiM) iron oxide (ferrite) and antiferromagnetic (AFM) cobalt oxide (CoO) through interface effects. The FiM/AFM MNOs are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), (scanning) transmission electron microscopy (STEM/TEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS), and Raman spectroscopy. Thermosensitivity is evaluated and quantified by temperature-dependent magnetic measurements. The FiM/AFM exchange coupling is confirmed by field-cooled (FC) hysteresis loops measured at 100 K. Magnetic particle spectroscopy (MPS) measurements were performed at room temperature to evaluate the MNOs MPI response. This initial study shows that FiM/AFM interfacial magnetic coupling is a viable method to increase thermosensitivity in MNOs for T-MPI.

Iron carbide nanoplatelets: colloidal synthesis and characterization.

Iron carbide nanoplatelets with an orthorhombic Fe3C structure were synthesized following a simple liquid chemical approach. The formation of the carbide phases was shown to depend on the presence of a long chain diol and the reaction temperature. Confirmation of the iron carbide phases and structural characterization was made by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Mössbauer spectroscopy. Particle morphology was characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and HR-TEM and the magnetic properties were measured with magnetometry (VSM). The sample with the Fe3C phase shows a ferromagnetic behavior with a magnetization of 139 emu g-1 under a 30 kOe applied field. The simple methodology presented here for producing iron carbide nanoplatelets has promising application in the biomedical and catalyst industries.

Structure and Magnetism of Co2Ge Nanoparticles.

The structural and magnetic properties of Co2Ge nanoparticles (NPs) prepared by the cluster-beam deposition (CBD) technique have been investigated. As-made particles with an average size of 5.5 nm exhibit a mixture of hexagonal and orthorhombic crystal structures. Thermomagnetic measurements showed that the as-made particles are superparamagnetic at room temperature with a blocking temperature (TB) of 20 K. When the particles are annealed at 823 K for 12 h, their size is increased to 13 nm and they develop a new orthorhombic crystal structure, with a Curie temperature (TC) of 815 K. This is drastically different from bulk, which are ferromagnetic at cryogenic temperatures only. X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements suggest the formation of a new Co-rich orthorhombic phase (OP) with slightly increased c/a ratio in the annealed particles and this is believed to be the reason for the drastic change in their magnetic properties.