Morphology of Dextran Coated Super Paramagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles by Atomic Force Microscopy

Dextran coated super paramagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) nanoparticles for medical aim was prepared by copercipitation method. Its morphology,including distribution and size were determined by atomic force microscopy (AFM),and compared with TEM image. The results show that the prepared dextran coated SPIO particles well distributed and no aggregation. TEM showed that the nucleus of iron oxide were mainly spherical,and the diameter was 5-20 nm. AFM revealed that the dextran-coated SPIO was cubic and its three dimensional were in the range of 200-300 nm,400-500 nm and 50-70 nm respectively.