In search of multifunctional magnetic nanoparticle design with micromagnetic simulations

Magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) serve as imaging tracers, therapeutic heating agents and biosensors in biomedical applications. All the above applications rely upon the particles’ unique relaxation mechanisms, which lead to phase shifts in alternating magnetic fields and dissipation. As MNP have an intrinsic size distribution and their magnetic properties are also size-dependent, search is ongoing for the optimally sized MNP that could potentially serve for all three applications simultaneously. In this work, we present our current results on simulating the influence of core size, mono- and polydisperse size distributions as well as magnetic anisotropy on the performance of MNP for both heating and biosensing using micromagnetic dynamic magnetization simulations.