Iron Oxide Nanorings and Nanotubes for Magnetic Hyperthermia: The Problem of Intraparticle Interactions

Magnetic interactions can play an important role in the heating efficiency of magnetic nanoparticles. Although most of the time interparticle magnetic interactions are a dominant source, in specific cases such as multigranular nanostructures intraparticle interactions are also relevant and their effect is significant. In this work, we have prepared two different multigranular magnetic nanostructures of iron oxide, nanorings (NRs) and nanotubes (NTs), with a similar thickness but different lengths (55 nm for NRs and 470 nm for NTs). In this way, we find that the NTs present stronger intraparticle interactions than the NRs. Magnetometry and transverse susceptibility measurements show that the NTs possess a higher effective anisotropy and saturation magnetization. Despite this, the AC hysteresis loops obtained for the NRs (0–400 Oe, 300 kHz) are more squared, therefore giving rise to a higher heating efficiency (maximum specific absorption rate, SAR(max) = 110 W/g for the NRs and 80 W/g for the NTs at 400 Oe and 300 kHz). These results indicate that the weaker intraparticle interactions in the case of the NRs are in favor of magnetic hyperthermia in comparison with the NTs.