Abstract
We report the synthesis of a new multifunctional nanomaterial based on silica-coated FePt/Fe3O4-CdSe heteronanostructures, combining luminescent and magnetic properties in a promising bifunctional sensor for biomedical applications. Spherical Fe3O4-coated FePt (FePt/Fe3O4) superparamagnetic nanoparticles (10.8 ± 1.5 nm) with high saturation magnetization and controlled size and shape were obtained using thermal decomposition coupled with seed-mediated growth method. Luminescent property was added to the nanomaterial by using the FePt/Fe3O4 magnetic core as seed and growing the CdSe quantum dots (2.7 ± 0.6 nm) onto its surface in a heterodimer-like structure using the hot-injection approach. The FePt/Fe3O4-CdSe luminomagnetic heteronanostructures were coated with silica shell using the reverse-micelle microemulsion route to avoid solvent-quenching effects. After silica coating, the water-dispersible heteronanostructures showed a diameter of 25.3 ± 2 nm, high colloidal stability, magnetic saturation of around 11 emu g−1, and photoluminescence in the blue-green region, as expected for potential bifunctional platform in biomedical applications. The saturation magnetization of heteronanostructures can be increased to 28 emu g−1 by annealing at 550°C due to the presence of the FePt phase.
Highlights
Multifunctional nanomaterials with magnetic and luminescent properties have showed excellent features in potential biomedical applications in diagnosis and therapies, or as unique theranostic platform [1,2,3]
Among the different types of luminomagnetic nanomaterials, the heteronanostructures (HNS) show convenient response in biomedical applications, because its features provide properties related to two or more individual nanostructures in the unique nanomaterial [4,5,6]. Some applications of this theranostic platform include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) [7], confocal and fluorescence imaging microscopies [4, 8] acting as contrast agents, cell separation and drug delivery [9, 10]
The polyol process coupled to seed-mediated growth was used to synthesize FePt/Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles in a core/shell nanostructure
Summary
Multifunctional nanomaterials with magnetic and luminescent properties have showed excellent features in potential biomedical applications in diagnosis and therapies, or as unique theranostic platform [1,2,3]. Among the different types of luminomagnetic nanomaterials, the heteronanostructures (HNS) show convenient response in biomedical applications, because its features provide properties related to two or more individual nanostructures in the unique nanomaterial [4,5,6]. Some applications of this theranostic platform include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) [7], confocal and fluorescence imaging microscopies [4, 8] acting as contrast agents, cell separation and drug delivery [9, 10]. The possibility of tuning the photoluminescence of quantum dots can be added to the superparamagnetism property of magnetic nanomaterials to make a theranostic platform
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