Laser monitoring of dynamic behavior of magnetic nanoparticles in magnetic field gradient

Abstract

Manipulation of magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) by an external magnetic field has been widely studied in the fields of biotechnology and medicine for collecting and/or reacting biomaterials in the solutions. Here, dynamic behaviors of MNP in solution under changing gradient magnetic field were investigated using our newly developed laser transmission system (LTS) with a variable magnetic field manipulator. The manipulator consists of a moving permanent magnet placed beside the optical cell filled with MNP solution. A laser beam was focused on the cell and the transmitted laser beam was detected by a silicon photodiode, so that the localized concentration of the MNP at the focused area could be evaluated by the intensity of transmitted laser beam. In this study, the LTS was applied to evaluate dynamic behaviors of MNP in serum solution. Dispersion and aggregation of MNP in the solution were evaluated. While time evolution of dispersion depends on the serum concentration, the behavior during aggregation by the magnetic field was independent of the serum concentration. A series of measurements for zeta-potentials, distributions of particle size, and magnetization distributions was carried out to understand this difference in the behavior. The results indicated that a Brownian motion was main force to distribute the MNP in the solution; on the other hand, the magnetic force to the MNP mainly affected the behavior during aggregation of the MNP in the solution.