Magnetic Particle Spectrometer for Characterization of Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles

Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI) is a relatively new tracer-based biomedical imaging technique that shows great promise for molecular imaging applications. Among these are malignant tumor detection, which can be used for diagnosis of diseases like breast cancer. In MPI the image quality, including resolution and SNR, is directly related to the properties of the tracer particle itself, known as superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs). Magnetic Particle Spectrometry (MPS) is a necessary tool for the characterization of magnetization properties of these nanoparticles. This project aims to develop an MPS to study directly magnetization data on different types of SPIONs including their functionalization that will later be used in MPI. To create a low-cost MPS, our team employed techniques such as 3D printing, off-the-shelf components, and Arduino and DAQ communication. The device is controlled through a user-friendly interface on a dedicated application that was created in Python.