Spin properties of PVA nanofibers with ferritin

Abstract

We investigate the morphological and the magnetic properties of ferritin-embedded poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) nanofibers. Monodispersed ferritin (MF) and the clustered superparamagnetic (SPM) ferritin (CF) were embedded into biocompatible PVA, nanofibers by using an electrospinning method. The magnetic phase of CF was partly changed from an antiferromagnetic to a ferromagnetic ordering, depending on the annealing temperature. CF keeping the SPM phase was successfully synthesized into PVA nanofibers and the SPM properties were analyzed and compared with those of natural ferritin embedded in PVA nanofibers. These results can be applied in manipulating the size and the magnetic ordering of biocompatible superparamagnets to realize biomedical electromagnetic devices.