Specific absorption rate of magnetic nanoparticles: nonlinear AC susceptibility

TL;DR

This paper investigates how nonlinear effects and dipolar interactions influence the specific absorption rate in magnetic nanoparticles used for hyperthermia, providing quantitative insights and revisiting safety criteria.

Contribution

It extends previous models by including nonlinear AC susceptibility and dipolar interactions, offering more accurate SAR predictions and a physical basis for safety limits.

Findings

Nonlinear corrections significantly affect SAR at high field intensities.

Dipolar interactions can enhance SAR depending on geometry.

Revisits and justifies the empirical safety criterion for magnetic field parameters.

Abstract

In the context of magnetic hyperthermia, several physical parameters are used to optimize the heat generation and these include the nanoparticles concentration and the magnitude and frequency of the external AC magnetic field. Here we extend our previous work by computing nonlinear contributions to the specific absorption rate, while taking into account (weak) inter-particle dipolar interactions and DC magnetic field. In the previous work, the latter were shown to enhance the SAR in some specific geometries and setup. We find that the cubic correction to the AC susceptibility does not modify the qualitative behavior observed earlier but does bring a non negligible quantitative change of specific absorption rate, especially at relatively high AC field intensities. Incidentally, within our approach based on the AC susceptibility, we revisit the physiological empirical criterion on the upper limit of the product of the AC magnetic field intensity $H_{0}$ and its frequency $f$, and provide a physicist's rationale for it.