Magnetic nanoparticles coated with biochemical ligands are enabling many biological and medical applications. In particular biomagnetic sensors have potential advantages of simplicity and rapidity. We demonstrate a substrate-free biomagnetic sensing approach using the magnetic ac susceptibility of ferromagnetic particles suspended in a liquid. The magnetic relaxation of these particles is mainly due to Brownian rotational diffusion, which can be modified by binding the particles to the intended target. This scheme has several advantages: (i) it requires only one binding event; (ii) there is an inherent check of integrity; and (iii) the signal contains additional information about the target size.

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Abstract-Pulsed-current controlled wall motion in 20 m wide 200 m long 160 nm thick patterned Permalloy strips was studied using magnetic force microscopy. By sequential imaging, the displacement of Bloch walls as far as 200 m along the strip was observed. The direction of motion was in the same direction as the carrier velocity, which reversed with current polarity. The displacement per pulse was dependent upon the sample thickness and current density, which suggests that the mechanism is a combination of s-d exchange and hydromagnetic domain drag forces.

A molecular association between chloroform and sulfur dioxide in the gas phase at room temperature was studied by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Since the intensity of the CH-stretching fundamental vibration of monomer chloroform is very weak but much stronger upon complexation, a simple subtraction procedure isolated the CH-stretching vibration spectrum of the complex. The presence of a 1:1 complex was confirmed by two dilution series, where the monomer concentrations were varied. The molecular association manifested itself as a shift of the peak absorbance of the CH-stretching vibration of CHCl3-SO2 by +7 cm(-1) and of the CD-stretching vibration of CDCl3-SO2 by +5 cm(-1) to higher wave numbers compared to monomer chloroform, accompanied by a considerable broadening of the band contour. In agreement with previous ab initio calculations, this indicates a "blueshifting" or more appropriately, a "C-H contracting" hydrogen bond between chloroform and sulfur dioxide. An estimate of the complex concentration was made based on ab initio calculations for the integrated band strength and the measured spectrum. With this estimate, the equilibrium constant Kp (295 K)=0.014 (po=10(5) Pa) for the dimerization was calculated, providing one of the very few cases where the formation of a hydrogen-bonded gas phase complex at room temperature could be quantitatively studied by infrared spectroscopy.

Submicron, circular, ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic dots exhibit different magnetization reversal mechanisms depending on the direction of the magnetic applied field. Shifted, constricted hysteresis loops, typical for vortex formation, are observed for fields along the exchange bias direction. However, for fields applied close to perpendicular to the exchange bias direction, magnetization reversal occurs via coherent rotation. Magnetic force microscopy imaging together with micromagnetic simulations are used to further clarify the different magnetic switching behaviors.