Investigation of Ferrimagnetic Sr-hexaferrite Nanocrystals for Clinical Hyperthermia

Abstract

Sr-hexaferrite samples were produced via the conventional ceramic method. X-ray diffractometry (XRD) patterns confirmed the single nanocrystal phase as Sr-hexaferrite where any pattern peaks of unreacted Fe₂O₃ phase were  not detected. The mean crystallite size values were determined to be 44.12±3.4nm and 41.2±3.2nm for SHF-O1 and SHF-O2, respectively. The chemical bonding peaks of our sample indicated that the structure of Sr-hexaferrite formation was confirmed by FTIR spectra result. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images indicated clearly observed porosity regions with relative densities as high as 94% and 87% for SHF-O1 and SHF-O2 samples.The vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) of each sample at 2K and under a magnetic field of 10 kOe yielded saturation magnetizations, Ms of 93.5 and 94.1 emu/g; remanence values, Mr of 76.4 and  67.8 emu/g for SHF-O1 and SHF-O2, respectively. The magnetization loops of both samples indicated a soft ferrimagnetic behaviour in which the saturation magnetizations were higher than those measured  at room temperature in the previous studies. The coercivities, Hc were measured to be 150Oe for both samples. The squareness values, SQR (Mr/Ms) were measured to be high, approximately 0.82 and 0.72 for SHF-O1 and SHF-O2, respectively. Depending on the adequate values of magnetization and coercivity along with small mean crystallite size and low porosity values of the obtained Sr-hexaferrite samples, we estimate that these samples are likely to be evaluated further for the potential use as thermoseeds in the field of clinical hyperthermia.