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Monte Carlo simulations of the magnetic behaviour of iron oxide nanoparticle ensembles: taking size dispersion, particle anisotropy, and dipolar interactions into account

  • Regular Article - Solid State and Materials
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Abstract

In this work, the magnetic properties of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) submitted to an external magnetic field are studied using a Metropolis algorithm. The influence on the M(B) curves of the size distribution of the nanoparticles, of uniaxial anisotropy, and of dipolar interaction between the cores are examined, as well as the influence of drying the samples under a zero or non-zero magnetic field. It is shown that the anisotropy impacts the shape of the magnetization curves, which then deviate from a pure Langevin behaviour, whereas the dipolar interaction has no influence on the curves at 300 K for small particles (with a radius of \(3\,\hbox {nm}\)). The fitting of the magnetization curves of particles with magnetic anisotropy to a Langevin model (including a size distribution of the particles) can then lead to erroneous values of the distribution parameters. The simulation results are qualitatively compared to experimental results obtained for iron oxide nanoparticles (with a \(3.21\, \hbox {nm}\) median radius).

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Data availability statement

All data, and the source code of the simulations and fits, are accessible upon request to the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Sophie Laurent from the University of Mons for the access to the Dynamic Light Scattering equipment. Computational resources have been provided by the Consortium des Équipements de Calcul Intensif (CÉCI), funded by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique de Belgique (F.R.S.-FNRS) under Grant No. 2.5020.11 and by the Walloon Region.

Funding

This work was supported by University of Mons (UMONS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biomedical Physics Unit, University of Mons, 25 avenue Maistriau, 7000, Mons, Belgium

    Éléonore Martin, Yves Gossuin & Quoc Lam Vuong

  2. Electron Microscopy for Materials Science (EMAT) and NANOlab Center of Excellence, University of Antwerp, 2020, Antwerp, Belgium

    Sara Bals & Safiyye Kavak

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  1. Éléonore Martin
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  2. Yves Gossuin
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Contributions

ÉM: methodology, software, validation, investigation, formal analysis, data curation, writing, and visualization. SB and SK: TEM imaging of the experimental sample. YG: conceptualization, methodology, data curation, resources, and supervision. QLV: conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, and supervision.

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Correspondence to Éléonore Martin.

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Martin, É., Gossuin, Y., Bals, S. et al. Monte Carlo simulations of the magnetic behaviour of iron oxide nanoparticle ensembles: taking size dispersion, particle anisotropy, and dipolar interactions into account. Eur. Phys. J. B 95, 201 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/s10051-022-00468-w

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