Effect of Gd substitution on structure, optical and magnetic properties, and heating efficiency of Fe3O4 nanoparticles for magnetic hyperthermia applications

This work presents the synthesis of Fe3-xGdxO4 nanoparticles and the investigation of the impact of Gd content (x) on structural characteristics of nanoparticles, including lattice parameters, crystallite size, and X-ray density. The high-resolution images of Transmission Electron Microscopy reveal that the synthesized Fe3-xGdxO4 nanoparticles have a narrow distribution in size statistics between 9 and 12.5 nm. Interestingly, analyzing different prepared samples reveals that both the saturation magnetization and magnetic anisotropy decrease simultaneously with the increase of band gap while remaining independent of the specific absorption rate (SAR) value. The SAR is greater than that of pure Fe3O4 nanoparticles. In a specific case of Fe2.75Gd0.25O4 sample where the optimal value of x is 0.25, the highest SAR value obtained is 237.4 W/g. Besides, the experimental results demonstrate an optimal doping content with the highest SAR value of Fe2.75Gd0.25O4 nanoparticles along with the theoretical explanation by analyzing the Linear Theory Response framework based on the relationship between magnetic anisotropy and diameter with SAR value. The theoretical and experimental evidence fully demonstrate that doping is an effective approach for optimizing as-synthesized NPs to enable efficient hyperthermia applications.