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Responsiveness to multiple stimuli and adaptivity are paramount for designing smart multifunctional materials. In soft, partially ordered systems, these features can often be achieved via self-assembly, allowing for the combination of diverse components in a complex nanostructured material. Here, we demonstrate an example of a liquid that simultaneously displays both ferroelectric and ferromagnetic types of order. This material is a nanostructured liquid crystalline hybrid comprising ferrimagnetic barium hexaferrite nanoplatelets suspended in a ferroelectric nematic host. Director-mediated interactions drive the self-assembly of nanoplatelets in an intricate network. Due to the couplings between the polar electric and magnetic types of order, this material demonstrates magnetically driven electric and nonlinear optical responses, as well as electrically driven magnetic response. Such multiferroic liquids are highly promising for applications in energy harvesting, nonlinear optics, and sensors.

In complex colloidal systems, interparticle interactions strongly affect the dynamics of the constituting particles. A study of the dynamical response also provides invaluable information on the character of those interactions. Here we demonstrate how tuning the electrostatic interactions by an ionic surfactant in dispersions of magnetic nanoplatelets leads to developing new dynamic modes in magnetic response spectra. The collective modes can be induced or suppressed by either varying the concentration ratio of the magnetic nanoplatelets (MP) to the surfactant or increasing the MP concentration reflecting the nanoscale characteristics of this fluid magnet.

Visualization of the in vivo spatial distribution of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) is crucial to biomedicine. Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) is one of the most promising approaches for direct measurements of the SPION distribution. In this paper, we systematically investigate a single-harmonic-based narrowband MPI approach. Herein, only the 3rd harmonic at 15 kHz of the SPION signal induced in an excitation magnetic field of 5 kHz is measured via a narrowband detection system for imaging during scanning a field-free-point in a field of view. Experiments on spot and line phantoms are performed to evaluate the spatial distribution by the assessment of the full width at half maximum and modulation transfer function at different excitation magnetic fields from 4 to 10 mT. Experimental results demonstrate that reconstructed images have a spatial resolution of 1.6 and 1.5 mm for a gradient field of 2.2 T/m and 4.4 T/m in x- and z-direction, respectively, at an excitation magnetic field of 4 mT. In terms of line gap, two lines with a gap of 0.5 mm are resolved. With increasing the excitation magnetic field to 10 mT, the spatial resolution gets worse to 2.4 and 2.0 mm in x- and z-direction, respectively. Moreover, the custom-built MPI scanner allows a limit of detection of 53 microgram (Fe)/mL (500 ng Fe weight) using perimag SPIONs. In addition, the excellent performance is demonstrated by imaging experiments on an "emg" logo phantom. We believe that the proposed narrowband MPI approach is a promising approach for SPION imaging.

The outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) threatens global medical systems and economies, and rules our daily living life. Controlling the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has become one of the most important and urgent strategies throughout the whole world. As of October, 2020, there have not yet been any medicines or therapies to be effective against SARS-CoV-2. Thus, rapid and sensitive diagnostics is the most important measures to control the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2. Homogeneous biosensing based on magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) is one of the most promising approaches for rapid and highly sensitive detection of biomolecules. This paper proposes an approach for rapid and sensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 with functionalized MNPs via the measurement of their magnetic response in an ac magnetic field. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach allows the rapid detection of mimic SARS-CoV-2 with a limit of detection of 0.084 nM (5.9 fmole). The proposed approach has great potential for designing a low-cost and point-of-care device for rapid and sensitive diagnostics of SARS-CoV-2., Comment: PDF file with 21 pages, 7 figures, 1 table

Modern high-energy particle accelerators and Free-Electron Lasers incorporate large quantities of sensitive RF and microwave frequency devices distributed over kilometer distances. Such devices require extreme stable phase and time synchronization by means of high frequency signal distributed along the accelerator facility. Coaxial cables are commonly used to distribute the reference signal over the large machine to synchronize electronic systems and they are the main source of undesirable phase drifts in the synchronization system. Signal phase drifts in cables are mainly caused by temperature and humidity variations and their values usually exceed required phase synchronization accuracy by more than order of magnitude. There are several approaches to reduce signal phase drifts in coaxial cables. This paper describes the realization of active phase stabilization system based on interference phenomenon. A phase-locked signal from the transmitter is reflected at the end of a coaxial cable link. Directional couplers placed along the cable pick up the forward and reflected signals and interfere them to cancel out the cable phase drifts. Distributed hardware including interferometer controller/transmitter and receiver modules were built to demonstrate system concept and performance. Link input and output devices used FPGA I/O boards with Ethernet interface to control system operation. Specialized firmware and software was developed to calibrate and control the system. This paper describes the concept of interferometer link, designed hardware, basic control algorithms and performance evaluation results. The link prototype was built to distribute 1.3 GHz signal through a coaxial cable. Measured phase drift suppression factor value exceeded level of 100., Comment: 6 pages, 10 figures, 21st IEEE Real Time Conference