Manganese ferrite nanocubes as an MRI contrast agent

Abstract

Facile synthesis of superparamagnetic, highly crystalline, manganese ferrite nanocubes (MnNCs) is reported. X-ray diffraction depicts single-phase face-centred cubic spinel and the electron microscopy represents the nearly monodispersed cube-like nanostructure with the size ranging from 18 to 20 nm. Vibrating sample magnetometer shows magnetization field-dependent curves at 300 K exhibiting the superparamagnetic behaviour of NCs with negligible remanence. Furthermore, the biocompatibility of NCs was proved by MTT assay. These unique characteristics make this NCs as a contrast agent ideally suited for T2-weighted MR imaging. This novel method of synthesizing NCs proves to be very attractive for various biomedical applications because of their outstanding stability and biocompatibility.