The development of a device for generating ac magnetic fields based on a resonant inverter is presented, which has been specially designed to carry out experiments of magnetic hyperthermia. By determining the electric current in the LC resonant circuit, a maximum intensity of magnetic field around of 15 mT is calculated, with a frequency around of 206 kHz. This ac magnetic field is able to heat powdered magnetic materials embedded in biological systems to be used in biomedical applications. Indeed, in order to evaluate the sensitivity of the device we also present the measurements of the specific absorption rate in phantoms performed with commercially prepared Fe(3)O(4) and distilled water at different concentrations.

A scanning system for specific absorption rate of ferrofluids with superparamagnetic nanoparticles is presented in this study. The system contains an induction heating device designed and built with a resonant inverter in order to generate magnetic field amplitudes up to 38 mT, over the frequency band 180-525 kHz. Its resonant circuit involves a variable capacitor with 1 nF of capacitance steps to easily select the desired frequency, reaching from 0.3 kHz/nF up to 5 kHz/nF of resolution. The device performance is characterized in order to compare with the theoretical predictions of frequency and amplitude, showing a good agreement with the resonant inverters theory. Additionally, the setup is tested using a synthetic iron oxide with 10 ± 1 nm diameter suspended in liquid glycerol, with concentrations at 1%. Meanwhile, the temperature rise is measured to determine the specific absorption rate and calculate the dissipated power density for each f. This device is a suitable alternative to studying ferrofluids and analyzes the dependence of the power absorption density with the magnetic field intensity and frequency.

In this study, a frequency tuner system is developed for generating variable frequency magnetic fields for magnetic hyperthermia applications. The tuning device contains three specially designed phase lock loop devices that drive a resonant inverter working in the frequency band of 180–525 kHz. This tuner system can be adapted for other resonant inverters employed in the studies of ferrofluids with superparamagnetic nanoparticles. The performance of the whole system is also examined. Our findings were in agreement with the theoretical expectations of phase locking and frequency tuning. The system is tested for samples of a solid magnetic material of cylindrical shape and ferrofluids with differing concentrations of powdered magnetite. The observations indicate significant frequency changes of the magnetic field due to heating of the samples. These frequency variations can be a source of errors, which should not be neglected in experiments determining the specific absorption rate or power dissipated density.