Gas phase synthesis of core-shell Fe@FeO x magnetic nanoparticles into fluids

Sorbitol, short chain molecules, have been used to stabilise of Fe@FeO x nanoparticles produced in the gas phase under the ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions. The sorbitol coated Fe@FeO x nanoparticles produced by our method have a narrow size distribution with a hydrodynamic diameter of 35 nm after NaOH is added to the solution. Magnetisation measurement shows that the magnetic nanoparticles are superparamagnetic at 100 K and demonstrate hysteresis at 5 K with an anisotropy constant of 5.31 × 10 4 J/m 3 (similar to bulk iron). Also, it is shown that sorbitol is only suitable for stabilising the Fe@FeO x suspensions, and it does not prevent further oxidation of the metallic Fe core. According to MRI measurement, the nanoparticles have a high transverse relaxation rate of 425 mM −1 s −1 .