Research Article
Nanoferrofluid Materials: Advanced Structure Monitoring Using
Optical Transmission in a Magnetic Field
Serhii Shulyma, Bogdan Tanygin, Valery Kovalenko, and Michail Petrychuk
Department of Radiophysics, Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University, 4G, Acad. Glushkov Ave., Kyiv 03187, Ukraine
Correspondence should be addressed to Serhii Shulyma; kiw_88@mail.ru
Received 24 December 2016; Revised 20 March 2017; Accepted 12 April 2017; Published 10 May 2017
Academic Editor: Balachandran Jeyadevan
Copyright © 2017 Serhii Shulyma et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Te optical transmission of a thin ferrofuid layer was investigated at various optical radiation wavelengths. Te turning on of
the durable external magnetic feld pulse leads to nonmonotonic changes of the optical transmission value with minimal value
during the feld pulse. Tis phenomenon is related to the formation of columnar nanoparticle aggregates and transformation
in the ferrofuid bulk. It was shown that time interval corresponding to the optical transmission minimum is proportional to
the laser wavelength, which can be explained with Mie-like optical extinction on the ferrofuid aggregates and its dependence
on the diameters of columnar aggregates. Hence, a simple experimental approach was proposed to measure and control the
ferrofuid aggregates diameters in submicron spatial dimension ranges. Particularly, this approach could be used for the formation
of composite nanomaterials consisting of polymers and magnetic nanoparticles with controlled structural parameters. Tese
materials could be reused afer parameters changes (e.g., lattice constant, aggregate size, and magnetic permeability tensor) with a
heating/cooling cycle without the need for preparation of a new material from scratch.
1. Background
Tere are a large number of recent scientifc reports dedicated
to new nanomaterials, their synthesis methods, structures,
and applications in various sectors, such as electronics [1, 2],
energetics [3, 4], and life sciences [5, 6]. Manufacturing of
magnetic single-domain nanoparticles has been an advanced
subject of research in the modern nanophysics that are typi-
cally suspended in a carrier fuid, forming a ferrofuid (FF).
Ferrofuids combine both liquid and magnetic characters
[7].
Te new century FF topicality revival is related to new
application trends: magnetic targeted in vivo drug delivery
[8, 9], local tumor hyperthermia [10], solid body surface
polishing [11], programmable lithography mask [12], and
others [13, 14]. Te FF properties (magnetic permeability
tensor, saturation magnetization, viscosity, and other prop-
erties) could be varied by its integral parts changes, for
instance, in the carrier liquid and the type and concentration
of nanoparticles. However, even without modifcation of
such components, the FF properties could vary via magnetic
nanoparticle aggregation phenomenon. Tere are two major
kinds of FFs [15]: highly stabilized colloid of magnetic single-
domain nanoparticles (“classical” FF) [16] and nonclassical
FF [17]. Without an external magnetic feld, the classical
FF may contain only submicron primary aggregates with
confned magnetic fux [18]. Oppositely, nonclassical FF
contains large aggregates visible in an optical microscope
[18, 19]. Application of an external magnetic feld reversibly
produces visible aggregates in both types of a FF [16, 17,
19–21]. Electrical feld [22] and optical radiation [23] may
also lead to formation of reversible aggregates. Magnetic
feld could produce 1D and 2D long-range ordered self-
organized FF aggregate structures, including visible ones
[14, 16, 24, 25]. Tey can be used for the formation of
micro- and nanostructured magnetic materials, including
liquid photonic crystals [25]. Te reversible formation of a
periodical magnetic aggregate structure could be used for
composite materials with specifcally assigned properties and
ability to change properties later for specifc applications.
Particularly, the magnetic feld sweep rate variation could be
used to change the columnar aggregate diameter [26].
Hindawi
Journal of Nanomaterials
Volume 2017, Article ID 7251725, 7 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/7251725