Fe3O4/Au/Fe3O4 nanoflowers exhibiting tunable saturation magnetization and enhanced bioconjugation

Composite nanoparticles have proved to be promising in a wide range of biotechnological applications. In this paper, we report on a facile method to synthesize novel Fe3O4/Au/Fe3O4 nanoparticles (nanoflowers) that integrate hybrid components and surface types. We demonstrate that relative to conventional nanoparticles with core/shell configuration, such nanoflowers not only retain their surface plasmon property but also allow for 170% increase in the saturation magnetization and 23% increase in the conjugation efficiency due to the synergistic co-operation between the hierarchical structures. Moreover, we demonstrate that the magnetic properties of such composite nanoparticles can be tuned by controlling the size of additional petals (Fe3O4 phase). These novel building blocks could open up novel and exciting vistas in nanomedicine for broad applications such as biosensing, cancer diagnostics and therapeutics, targeted delivery, and imaging.