Here, we resolve the nature of the moment coupling between 10-nm DMSA-coated magnetic nanoparticles. The individual iron oxide cores were composed of > 95 % maghemite and agglomerated to clusters. At room temperature the ensemble behaved as a superparamagnet according to Mössbauer and magnetization measurements, however, with clear signs of dipolar interactions. Analysis of temperature-dependent AC susceptibility data in the superparamagnetic regime indicates a tendency for dipolar coupled anticorrelations of the core moments within the clusters. To resolve the directional correlations between the particle moments we performed polarized small-angle neutron scattering and determined the magnetic spin-flip cross-section of the powder in low magnetic field at 300 K. We extract the underlying magnetic correlation function of the magnetization vector field by an indirect Fourier transform of the cross-section. The correlation function suggests non-stochastic preferential alignment between neighboring moments despite thermal fluctuations, with anticorrelations clearly dominating for next-nearest moments. These tendencies are confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations of such core-clusters.

Magnetic particles are widely used in lab-on-chip and biosensing applications, because they have a high surface-to-volume ratio, they can be actuated with magnetic fields and many biofunctionalization options are available. This review focuses on the use of rotating magnetic particles for lab-on-chip applications.

We propose a method for quantifying charge-driven instabilities in clusters, based on equilibrium simulations under confinement at constant external pressure. This approach makes no assumptions about the mode of decay and allows different clusters to be compared on an equal footing. A comprehensive survey of stability in model clusters of 309 Lennard-Jones particles augmented with Coulomb interactions is presented. We proceed to examine dynamic signatures of instability, finding that rate constants for ejection of charged particles increase smoothly as a function of total charge with no sudden changes. For clusters where many particles carry charge, ejection of individual charges competes with a fission process that leads to more symmetric division of the cluster into large fragments. The rate constants for fission depend much more sensitively on total charge than those for ejection of individual particles.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, Special Issue of Molecular Physics for the 70th birthday of Jean-Pierre Hanse

Protein conformational changes are essential to biological function, and the heterogeneous nature of the corresponding protein states provokes an interest to measure conformational changes at the single molecule level.