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Exchange-coupled magnetic nanoparticles for efficient heat induction

Nature Nanotechnology volume 6, pages 418–422 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

The conversion of electromagnetic energy into heat by nanoparticles has the potential to be a powerful, non-invasive technique for biotechnology applications such as drug release1,2,3, disease treatment4,5,6 and remote control of single cell functions7,8,9, but poor conversion efficiencies have hindered practical applications so far10,11. In this Letter, we demonstrate a significant increase in the efficiency of magnetic thermal induction by nanoparticles. We take advantage of the exchange coupling between a magnetically hard core and magnetically soft shell to tune the magnetic properties of the nanoparticle and maximize the specific loss power, which is a gauge of the conversion efficiency. The optimized core–shell magnetic nanoparticles have specific loss power values that are an order of magnitude larger than conventional iron-oxide nanoparticles. We also perform an antitumour study in mice, and find that the therapeutic efficacy of these nanoparticles is superior to that of a common anticancer drug.

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Figure 1: Experimental setup, measurements and simulations of SLP of magnetic nanoparticles.
Figure 2: TEM analyses and magnetic measurements of core–shell nanoparticles.
Figure 3: SLP comparison of magnetic nanoparticles.
Figure 4: In vivo hyperthermia treatment of cancer.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Creative Research Initiative (2010-0018286), WCU Program (R32-2009-10217) and BK21 Project. The authors thank H. Nah for preliminary SLP measurements and Y. Jo at KBSI for magnetism measurements. K.I.P. was supported by the Stem Cell Research Center and Korea Healthcare Technology R&D Project (A091159).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Yonsei University, Seoul, 120-749, Korea

    Jae-Hyun Lee, Jung-tak Jang, Jin-sil Choi, Seung Ho Moon, Seung-hyun Noh, Ji-wook Kim & Jinwoo Cheon

  2. Division of Electron Microscopic Research, Korea Basic Science Institute, Daejeon, 305-333, Korea

    Jin-Gyu Kim

  3. Department of Pediatrics and BK 21, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, 120-752, Korea

    Il-Sun Kim & Kook In Park

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  1. Jae-Hyun Lee
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Contributions

J.C. conceived and designed the experiment. J-H.L, J-t.J., S.H.M., J-G.K. and S-h.N. performed syntheses, characterizations and property measurements of the nanoparticles. J-s.C., I-S.K. and K.I.P. performed in vivo experiments. J-H.L., J-w.K. and J.C. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jinwoo Cheon.

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Lee, JH., Jang, Jt., Choi, Js. et al. Exchange-coupled magnetic nanoparticles for efficient heat induction. Nature Nanotech 6, 418–422 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2011.95

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