Air-stable Fe@Au nanoparticles synthesized by the microemulsion’s methods

Abstract

Magnetic particles covered by gold are very important in many biological applications. However, there are not simple methods to produce small (< 5–10 nm) nanoparticles. One of the main reasons for that is the general use of iron oxides as magnetic cores, which have a large crystalline mismatch with gold. The use of Fe would be more appropriate, but its high tendency to oxidation has largely precluded it from being used as a core. Here, we will show that using a simple “one-pot” successive reaction method in microemulsions, can avoid such problems and is able to produce very stable core-shell Fe@Au nanoparticles. With this procedure, nanoparticles of ∼6 nm with a Fe core of 3 nm can easily be obtained. These Fe@Au nanoparticles, with a saturation magnetization of 1.13 emu/g, are very stable even in air after magnetic separation from the solution, which shows the good covering of the Fe core by the Au shell. In this contribution we will report the key parameters, which have to be taken into account, to prepare such stable Fe@Au dispersions and analyze their optical and magnetic properties, as well as their possible applications as biosensors, targeted magnetic separation, etc.