Ultrafast Preparation of Monodisperse Fe3 O4 Nanoparticles by Microwave-Assisted Thermal Decomposition.

Thermal decomposition, as the main synthetic procedure for the synthesis of magnetic nanoparticles (NPs), is facing several problems, such as high reaction temperatures and time consumption. An improved a microwave-assisted thermal decomposition procedure has been developed by which monodisperse Fe3 O4 NPs could be rapidly produced at a low aging temperature with high yield (90.1 %). The as-synthesized NPs show excellent inductive heating and MRI properties in vitro. In contrast, Fe3 O4 NPs synthesized by classical thermal decomposition were obtained in very low yield (20.3 %) with an overall poor quality. It was found for the first time that, besides precursors and solvents, magnetic NPs themselves could be heated by microwave irradiation during the synthetic process. These findings were demonstrated by a series of microwave-heating experiments, Raman spectroscopy and vector-network analysis, indicating that the initially formed magnetic Fe3 O4 particles were able to transform microwave energy into heat directly and, thus, contribute to the nanoparticle growth.

Preparation of Stabilizer-Free Silver Nanoparticle-Coated Micropipettes as Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Substrate for Single Cell Detection.

In this work, we established a convenient while reproduceable method for stabilizer-free silver nanoparticle (AgNP)-coated micropipettes by the combination of magnetron sputtering and surface coupling agent. The clear surfaces of the AgNPs are beneficial for absorbing biological or functional molecules on their surfaces. By optimizing the operating parameters, such as sputtering current and sputtering time, the tip of micropipettes coated with AgNPs exhibits excellent surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) performance. Finally, the Raman spectra of a single A549 lung adenocarcinoma cell are successfully acquired by these advanced SERS-active micropipettes.