Dynamical Effective Field Model for Interacting Ferrofluids: I. Derivations for homogeneous, inhomogeneous, and polydisperse cases

Quite recently I have proposed a nonperturbative dynamical effective field model (DEFM) to quantitatively describe the dynamics of interacting ferrofluids. Its predictions compare very well with the results from Brownian dynamics simulations. In this paper I put the DEFM on firm theoretical ground by deriving it within the framework of dynamical density functional theory (DDFT), taking into account nonadiabatic effects. The DEFM is generalized to inhomogeneous finite-size samples for which the macroscopic and mesoscopic scale separation is nontrivial due to the presence of long-range dipole-dipole interactions. The demagnetizing field naturally emerges from microscopic considerations and is consistently accounted for. The resulting mesoscopic dynamics only involves macroscopically local quantities such as local magnetization and Maxwell field. Nevertheless, the local demagnetizing field essentially couples to magnetization at distant macroscopic locations. Thus, a two-scale parallel algorithm, involving information transfer between different macroscopic locations, can be applied to fully solve the dynamics in an inhomogeneous sample. I also derive the DEFM for polydisperse ferrofluids, in which different species can be strongly coupled to each other dynamically. I discuss the underlying assumptions in obtaining a thermodynamically consistent polydisperse magnetization relaxation equation, which is of the same generic form as that for monodisperse ferrofluids. The theoretical advances presented in this paper are important for both qualitative understanding and quantitative modeling of the dynamics of ferrofluids and other dipolar systems.

Insight into the Gd–Pt Bond: Slow Magnetic Relaxation of a Heterometallic Gd–Pt Complex

Lanthanide (Ln) compounds are common research targets in the field of magnetism and optics. Their properties arise from the electron localized in the f-orbital. Moreover, the effect of the covalency between lanthanide and ligands on magnetism attracted significant attention. We provided insight into the Gd–Pt bond (of the heterometallic Ln-Pt complexes: {[Pt(PhSAc)4]Ln[(PhSAc)4Pt]} NEt4·2DMF (Ln = Y(0), La(1), Gd(2); PhSAc = thiobenzoate, NEt4 = tetraethylammonium)); single-crystal polarized X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) reveal the electronic states around metal ion, where spectra of Gd-LIII edges show the Gd–Pt direction has the highest covalency (less ionic) around Gd ion in 2. In addition, calculating natural bonding (NBO) analysis, natural population analysis (NPA), LOL, and atoms in molecules (AIM), ab initio calculations reveal the role of metallic and organic ligands in the electronic and magnetic properties of Ln complexes. The slow magnetization relaxation of the Gd complex, which has not been reported previously in the Pt–Gd–Pt system, was observed up to 45K, the highest temperature reported to date among isolated Gd-complexes.

Anisotropic critical current density and flux pinning mechanism of Fe1+yTe0.6Se0.4 single crystals

Fe1+yTe0.6Se0.4 has considerable application potential due to its large critical current density (J c) and high upper critical magnetic field (H c2). However, the uncertainty of the anisotropy of J c and the unclear flux-pinning mechanism have limited the application of this material. In this study, the J c in three directions were obtained from magnetic hysteresis loop measurements. A large anisotropy of J c ab /J c c ~ 10 was observed, and the origin of the anisotropy was discussed in details. Flux pinning force densities (F p) were obtained from J c, and a non-scaling behavior was found in the normalized pinning force f p[F p/F p-max] versus the normalized field h[H/H c2]. The peaks of pinning force shift from a high h to a low h with increasing temperature. Based on the vortex dynamics analysis, the peak shift was found to originate from the magnetization relaxation. The J c and F p at critical states free from the magnetic relaxation were regained. According to the Dew-Hughes model, the dominant pinning type in Fe1+yTe0.6Se0.4 clean single crystals was confirmed to be normal point pinning.

Proton magnetization relaxation in aqueous suspensions of composite silicon-iron nanoparticles for biomedical applications

Silicon-iron composite nanoparticles produced by arc-discharge plasma ablation method were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering, X-ray fluorescence diffractometry, and the effect of iron content and size of the nanoparticles on hydrogen nuclei magnetization relaxation were investigated by nuclear magnetic resonance relaxometry. It was shown that increasing in iron content during the synthesis leads to distortion of the spherical shape of the nanoparticles and increasing of their mean sizes from 140 nm to 350 nm. Nonlinear dependence of the longitudinal and transverse relaxivities from iron content was demonstrated. Increase in the iron concentration above 2.5 at. % leads to reduction of the both relaxivities, which can be explained by nonuniform distribution of iron and formation of iron containing agglomerates. It was shown that transverse and longitudinal relaxivities of the nanoparticles in their aqueous solutions inversely proportional from their hydrodynamic diameters in the range of 100 – 300 nm. The possibilities of using composite silicon-iron nanoparticles for biomedical applications are discussed.

Improving the robustness of MOLLI T1 maps with a dedicated motion correction algorithm

Myocardial tissue T1 constitutes a reliable indicator of several heart diseases related to extracellular changes (e.g. edema, fibrosis) as well as fat, iron and amyloid content. Magnetic resonance (MR) T1-mapping is typically achieved by pixel-wise exponential fitting of a series of inversion or saturation recovery measurements. Good anatomical alignment between these measurements is essential for accurate T1 estimation. Motion correction is recommended to improve alignment. However, in the case of inversion recovery sequences, this correction is compromised by the intrinsic contrast variation between frames. A model-based, non-rigid motion correction method for MOLLI series was implemented and validated on a large database of cardiac clinical cases (n = 186). The method relies on a dedicated similarity metric that accounts for the intensity changes caused by T1 magnetization relaxation. The results were compared to uncorrected series and to the standard motion correction included in the scanner. To automate the quantitative analysis of results, a custom data alignment metric was defined. Qualitative evaluation was performed on a subset of cases to confirm the validity of the new metric. Motion correction caused noticeable (i.e. > 5%) performance degradation in 12% of cases with the standard method, compared to 0.3% with the new dedicated method. The average alignment quality was 85% ± 9% with the default correction and 90% ± 7% with the new method. The results of the qualitative evaluation were found to correlate with the quantitative metric. In conclusion, a dedicated motion correction method for T1 mapping MOLLI series has been evaluated on a large database of clinical cardiac MR cases, confirming its increased robustness with respect to the standard method implemented in the scanner.