Biological sensing with magnetic nanoparticles using Brownian relaxation (invited)

Magnetic nanoparticles coated with biochemical ligands are enabling many biological and medical applications. In particular biomagnetic sensors have potential advantages of simplicity and rapidity. We demonstrate a substrate-free biomagnetic sensing approach using the magnetic ac susceptibility of ferromagnetic particles suspended in a liquid. The magnetic relaxation of these particles is mainly due to Brownian rotational diffusion, which can be modified by binding the particles to the intended target. This scheme has several advantages: (i) it requires only one binding event; (ii) there is an inherent check of integrity; and (iii) the signal contains additional information about the target size. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.