ABSTRACT
Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) dispersed in several media are currently a subject of basic and applied research due to their unusual and eventually exploitable important properties that lead to wide variety of applications in technological and biomedical fields such as magnetic particle hyperthermia (MPH). This chapter discusses briefly the major mechanisms responsible for energy loss (electromagnetic energy to heat conversion) when a substance enters an alternating magnetic field. It starts from the non-magnetic origin mechanisms i.e. Eddy current loss and viscous loss apparent to all particle systems, and concludes with magnetic relaxation and hysteresis loss dominating in superparamagnetism and ferromagnetism nanoparticles, respectively. The chapter discusses magnetic particle hyperthermia experiment and evaluation and looks at the various biomedical applicability constraints. The choice of the MNPs to be employed not only as hyperthermia agents but more generally as biomedical probes has to do with four aspects: material, size, shape, and formation (i.e. core-shell, multi-core, chains).
