Facile Synthesis of Monodisperse Superparamagnetic Fe3O4 Core@hybrid@Au Shell Nanocomposite for Bimodal Imaging and Photothermal Therapy

A simple seed-mediated growth route is developed to fabricate monodisperse, uniform superparamagnetic Fe3O4 core/gold shell structured nanocomposites with tunable sizes and optical properties, in which gold seed formation and attachment onto the core surface via S-Au covalent bonding proceeds almost simultaneously in the one-pot synthesis. The as-prepared nanocomposite is demonstrated to have a great potential for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided, focused photothermal tumor therapy under near-IR laser radiation.