Magnetic nanowires (MNWs) rank among the most promising multifunctional magnetic nanomaterials for nanobarcoding applications, especially biolabeling, owing to their nontoxicity and remote excitation using a single magnetic source. Until recently, the first-order reversal curve (FORC) technique has been broadly used to study the MNWs for biolabeling applications. However, since FORC measurements require many data points, this technique is very slow which makes it inapplicable for clinical use. For this reason, we recently developed a fast new framework, named the projection method, to measure the irreversible switching field (ISF) distributions of MNWs as the magnetic signature for the demultiplexing of magnetic biopolymers. Here, we illustrate the ISF distributions of several MNWs types in terms of their coercivity and interaction fields, which are characterized using both FORC and projection methods. Then, we explain how to tailor the ISF distributions to generate distinct signature to reliably and quantitatively demultiplex the magnetically enriched biopolymers.
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Facile decoding of quantitative signatures from magnetic nanowire arrays
Abstract Magnetic nanoparticles have been proposed as contact-free minimal-background nanobarcodes, and yet it has been difficult to rapidly and reliably decode them in an assembly. Here, high aspect ratio nanoparticles, or magnetic nanowires (MNWs), are characterized using first-order reversal curves (FORC) to investigate quantitative decoding. We have synthesized four types of nanowires (differing in diameter) that might be used for barcoding, and identified four possible “signature” functions that might be used to quickly distinguish them. To test this, we have measured the signatures of several combination samples containing two or four different MNW types, and fit them to linear combinations of the individual type signatures to determine the volume ratios of the types. We find that the signature which determines the ratios most accurately involves only the slope of each FORC at its reversal field, which requires only 2–4 data points per FORC curve, reducing the measurement time by a factor of 10 to 50 compared to measuring the full FORC.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1642268
- PAR ID:
- 10209706
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Scientific Reports
- Volume:
- 10
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2045-2322
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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