Gadolinia nanofibers as a multimodal bioimaging and potential radiation therapy agent

Abstract

Continuous bead-free C-type cubic gadolinium oxide (Gd 2 O 3) nanofibers 20-30 μm long and 40-100 nm in diameter were sintered by sol-gel calcination assisted electrospinning technique. Dipole-dipole interaction of neighboring Gd 3+ ions in nanofibers with large length-to-diameter aspect ratio results in some kind of superparamagnetic behavior: fibers are magnetized twice stronger than Gd 2 O 3 powder. Being compared with commercial Gd-DTPA/Magnevist ®, Gd 2 O 3 diethyleneglycol-coated (Gd 2 O 3 -DEG) fibers show high 1/T 1 and 1/T 2 proton relaxivities. Intense room temperature photoluminescence, high NMR relaxivity and high neutron scattering cross-section of 157 Gd nucleus promise to integrate Gd 2 O 3 fibers for multimodal bioimaging and neutron capture therapy.