TECHNOLOGY
Nanos SCI develops and produces superparamagnetic iNANOvative™ nanoparticle clusters composed of a number of individual maghemite magnetic nanoparticles. Compared to individual superparamagnetic nanoparticle - SPION, the nanoparticle clusters (size 70-150 nm) display much larger magnetic moments needed in applications involving manipulation with magnetic field. The focus of our product development is to design high quality customer-oriented products for various applications including nanophotonics, NEMS, biosensors and biomedicine.
iNANOvative™ | nanochains are anisotropic 1D nanostructures composed of iNANOvative™ | silica cr nanoparticle clusters. The structure is achieved by magnetic assembly of nanoparticle clusters in a magnetic field followed by fixation of the structure with an additional layer of silica. Nanochains with defined spacing between adjacent clusters can be synthesized using nanoparticle clusters with different silica shell thickness (see TEM photos below).

The nanochains exhibit superparamagnetic properties i.e. magnetic responsiveness, a uniform size, and good colloidal stability. This properties make iNANOvative™ | nanochains suitable for various biomedical applications and magneto-rheology.

Ref.: Kralj, S. and Makovec, D. Magnetic Assembly of Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticle Clusters into Nanochains and Nanobundles. ACS Nano, 2015, DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5b02328.

TEM image of NANOvative™ | nanochains
TEM image of iNANOvative™ | nanochains
Each nanocluster is composed of many single 10-nm maghemite (gamma-Fe2O3) magnetic nanoparticles, thus retaining the superparamagnetic behavior at room temperature. The appropriate surface modifications of formed nanoparticle clusters enable homogeneous dispersion of nanoparticle clusters in aqueous suspensions. The iNANOvative™ nanoparticle clusters have high saturation magnetization up to 55 emu/g, depending on the silica-shell thickness or the amount of other surface non-magnetic material. On demand modified iNANOvative™ nanoparticle clusters can accelerate your research in various important biomedical applications such as delivery systems, bioseparations etc.
Ref.: Tadic, M. et al. Magnetic properties of novel superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoclusters and their peculiarity under annealing treatment. Applied Surface Science, 2014,322, p255­64.
iNANOvative™ | photonics

The iNANOvative™ nanoparticle clusters have desirable properties to be used in NANOPHOTONICS as building blocks for magnetic tunable colloidal photonic crystals. The iNANOvative™ nanoparticle clusters form ordered structures along the direction of the external magnetic field with a regular interparticle spacing on the order of hundreds of nanometers resulting in strong diffraction of visible light in suspension. There are many applications such as telecommunications, lasers, sensors, optical switches, color displays etc., where manipulation of photons is required in their photonic components. Very important feature iNANOvative™ nanoparticle clusters offer is a tunable bandgap which can be controlled by conventional external magnetic field over the broad diffraction range (see animation below).

Magnetically tunable strong diffraction of visible light:

iNANOvative™ | silica nanoparticle clusters form chains in applied magnetic field:

However, when the nanoparticles are very small, that is below approximately 15 nm for magnetic iron oxide, their magnetic moments spontaneously relax; the nanoparticles become superparamagnetic. The superparamagnetic nanoparticles or nanoparticle clusters show no magnetic remanence. They are therefore non-magnetic when outside an external magnetic field. That is crucial in preparation of the stable suspensions because the superparamagnetic nanoparticles do not magnetically agglomerate. When placed into the magnetic field they behave similarly to ordinary magnetic materials.

The most useful advantage of iNANOvative™ superparamagnetic nanoparticle clusters over single superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) is the strength of magnetic force acting on the nanoparticle clusters in the gradient of the magnetic field, which is crucial for their remote manipulation. The iNANOvative™ nanoparticle clusters can be collected from the stable suspension using a standard permanent external magnet easily (see animation below) while the single superparamagnetic nanoparticles are difficult to effectively separate from stable suspension or control their movement in blood using moderate magnetic fields.

The iNANOvative™ nanoparticle clusters are particularly useful in all biomedical applications where the "magnetic guiding" of nanostructure is desired (e.g. iNANOfection™ - transfection method using iNANOvative™ nanoparticle clusters containing nucleic acids, iNANOseparations™, magnetic iNANOdelivery™ systems). The application development of iNANOvative™ nanoparticle clusters for the above-mentioned biomedical uses is in progress.

Magnetic PDMS is a homogeneous dispersion of single superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (sSPIONs™) in amine-modified polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). With the product sSPIONs™|PDMS you can make your own solid (elastomer) magnetic microparticles of desired shape and size (see SEM photos below). Applications possible in NEMS technology, MICROFLUIDICS, BIOCHIP technology etc.
Magnetic PDMS microparticles casted using sSPIONs™
Magnetic PDMS microparticles casted using sSPIONs™

Ref.: Kavre, I. et al. Fabrication of magneto­responsive microgears based on magnetic nanoparticle embedded PDMS. RSC advances, 2014, 4, p38316­22.

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