Au@Fe3O4 NANOPARTICLES: PREPARATION, CHARACTERIZATION AND CYTOTOXIC EVALUATION

Abstract

Gold-coated iron oxide nanoparticles are a class of potential theranostic nanoparticles that have been studied for their multitude of magnetic and optical properties with possible medical applications. In this work, spherical Au@Fe3O4 nanoparticles were successfully synthesized from Fe electrodes immersed in HAuCl4 solution using a very simple method - pulsed plasma in liquid, without any dopants or special conditions for stabilization. Vibrating sample magnetometer indicated ferromagnetic behavior of the particles at room temperature with coercivity and saturation magnetization of Hc=175 and Ms= 3.56 emu/g, respectively. Face-centered cubic Au and spinel inverse structure of FCC- Fe3O4 were determined by X-Ray diffraction analysis. High-resolution transmission electron microscopic analysis revealed that Fe3O4 particles with 14 nm in size are connected to 18 nm Au particles. The cytotoxicity of the nanoparticles was evaluated using a XTT assay on Hela cells, revealing very low (cell viability: 98-89% with Fe3O4 and 99-91% for Au@Fe3O4 NPs). This indicates that Au improves biocompatibility of magnetic nanoparticles, enabling their application in biomedicine