Modeling the Magnetic-Hyperthermia Response of Linear Chains of Nanoparticles with Low Anisotropy: A Key to Improving Specific Power Absorption

Abstract

The effect of magnetic interactions is a key issue for the performance of nanoparticles in magnetic fluid hyperthermia. There are reports informing on beneficial or detrimental effects in terms of the specific power absorption depending on the intrinsic magnetic properties and the spatial arrangement of the nanoparticles. To understand this effect, our model treats a simple system: an ensemble of identical nanoparticles arranged in an ideal chain with the easy axis of the effective uniaxial anisotropy of each particle aligned parallel to the chain. We study the magnetic relaxation of linear chains with low anisotropy in magnetic-fluid-hyperthermia experiments, a system that yields a larger hysteresis area than the noninteracting case (i.e., improved specific power absorption) for all orientations of the chain (even in the perpendicular configuration and the randomly oriented case). The most-favorable case is the chain parallel to the external field; however, we show that the incorporation of a dipolar-field component perpendicular to the external field is necessary for the correct modeling of chains nearly in the perpendicular configuration, which is not always done. The mechanism involved in the hysteresis-area increase can be interpreted as a shift between the local field and the applied field.