LAUSR

Abstract Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have demonstrated their potential in a wide variety of biomedical applications including in tumour hyperthermia. However, highly reactive nature and aggregation affinity of these nanostructures are the principal limitations for such applications. To overcome these limitations, those MNPs should be covered with an inert shell in order to protect the magnetic core against chemical alterations. Considering the noble, chemically inert nature of gold, which also has good biocompatibility, we fabricated chemically stable gold-coated Fe 3 O 4 (Fe 3 O 4 @Au) nanoparticles of 20–50 nm size range with considerable saturation magnetization, though a simple one-pot solvothermal method. The morphology, elemental distribution and the structure of the core-shell nanoparticles were characterized using aberration-corrected (Cs) Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), and compared with their simulated images. Cytotoxicity assay in MDCK cell line was performed to evaluate the biocompatibility of the nanoparticles. The results showed higher cell viability for the Fe 3 O 4 @Au nanoparticles, suggesting their good biocompatibility and potentials for biomedical applications.