Characterizing and imaging magnetic nanoparticles by optical magnetometry

We review our ongoing work on deploying optical (atomic) magnetometry for measuring the magnetic response of magnetic nanoparticle (MNP) samples, yielding MNP size distributions, and other sample parameters like Neel relaxation time τ, saturation magnetisation Ms , anisotropy constant K and magnetic susceptibility χ. We address magnetorelaxation (MRX) signals, in which the decaying magnetisation M(t) following a magnetising pulse is recorded by a single atomic magnetometer or by a novel magnetic source imaging camera (MSIC) allowing spatially resolved MRX studies of distributed MNP samples. We further show that optical magnetometers can be used for a direct measurement of the M(H) and dM/dH(H) dependencies of MNP samples, the latter forming the basis for an optical magnetometer implementation of the MPI (Magnetic Particle Imaging) method. All experiments are in view of developing biomedical imaging modalities.