TY - JOUR A1 - Szczerba, Wojciech A1 - Costo, R. A1 - Veintemillas-Verdaguer, S. A1 - del Puerto Morales, M. A1 - Thünemann, Andreas T1 - SAXS analysis of single- and multi-core iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles JF - Journal of Applied Crystallography N2 - This article reports on the characterization of four superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles stabilized with dimercaptosuccinic acid, which are suitable candidates for reference materials for magnetic properties. Particles p1 and p2 are single-core particles, while p3 and p4 are multi-core particles. Small-angle X-ray scattering analysis reveals a lognormal type of size distribution for the iron oxide cores of the particles. Their mean radii are 6.9 nm (p1), 10.6 nm (p2), 5.5 nm (p3) and 4.1 nm (p4), with narrow relative distribution widths of 0.08, 0.13, 0.08 and 0.12. The cores are arranged as a clustered network in the form of dense mass fractals with a fractal dimension of 2.9 in the multi-core particles p3 and p4, but the cores are well separated from each other by a protecting organic shell. The radii of gyration of the mass fractals are 48 and 44 nm, and each network contains 117 and 186 primary particles, respectively. The radius distributions of the primary particle were confirmed with transmission electron microscopy. All particles contain purely maghemite, as shown by X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy KW - Superparamagnetic nanoparticles KW - Iron oxide KW - Reference materials KW - SAXS KW - Small-angle x-ray scattering KW - XANES KW - X-ray absorption near-edge structure KW - X-ray absorption fine structure PY - 2017 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-395948 DO - https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600576717002370 SN - 1600-5767 VL - 50 IS - Part 2 SP - 481 EP - 488 PB - (IUCr) International Union of Crystallography AN - OPUS4-39594 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bender, P A1 - Balceris, C. A1 - Ludwig, F A1 - Posth, O A1 - Bogart, L. K. A1 - Szczerba, Wojciech A1 - Castro, A A1 - Nilsson, L A1 - Costo, R A1 - Gavilan, H A1 - Gonzalez-Alonso, D A1 - de Pedro, I A1 - Barquin, L. F. A1 - Johansson, C T1 - Distribution functions of magnetic nanoparticles determined by a numerical inversion method JF - New Journal of Physics N2 - In the present study, we applied a regularized inversion method to extract the particle size, magnetic moment and relaxation-time distribution of magnetic nanoparticles from small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS), DC magnetization (DCM) and AC susceptibility (ACS) measurements. For the measurements the particles were colloidally dispersed in water. At first approximation the particles could be assumed to be spherically shaped and homogeneously magnetized single-domain particles. As model functions for the inversion, we used the particle form factor of a sphere (SAXS), the Langevin function (DCM) and the Debye model (ACS). The extracted distributions exhibited features/peaks that could be distinctly attributed to the individually dispersed and non-interacting nanoparticles. Further analysis of these peaks enabled, in combination with a prior characterization of the particle ensemble by electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering, a detailed structural and magnetic characterization of the particles. Additionally, all three extracted distributions featured peaks, which indicated deviations of the scattering (SAXS), magnetization (DCM) or relaxation (ACS) behavior from the one expected for individually dispersed, homogeneously magnetized nanoparticles. These deviations could be mainly attributed to partial agglomeration (SAXS, DCM, ACS), uncorrelated surface spins (DCM) and/or intra-well relaxation processes (ACS). The main advantage of the numerical inversion method is that no ad hoc assumptions regarding the line shape of the extracted distribution functions are required, which enabled the detection of these contributions. We highlighted this by comparing the results with the results obtained by standard model fits, where the functional form of the distributions was a priori assumed to be log-normal shaped. KW - SAXS KW - Small-angle X-ray scattering KW - Nanoparticle PY - 2017 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-429373 DO - https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/aa73b4 SN - 1367-2630 VL - 19 SP - 073012, 1 EP - 073012, 19 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. AN - OPUS4-42937 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -