Experimental issues in magnetic force microscopy of nanoparticles

The development of magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical applications requires a detailed characterization of their magnetic properties, with relation not only to their chemical structure, but also their morphology and size. Magnetic force microscopy (MFM), thanks to its nanometric lateral resolution and its capability to detect weak magnetic fields, appears as a powerful tool for the characterization of the magnetic properties of single nanoparticles, together with their morphological characteristics. Nevertheless, the application of MFM to the quantitative measurements of magnetic properties at the nanoscale is still an open issue because of a certain incongruence between experimental data and existing theoretical models of the tip-sample magnetic interactions. In this work, MFM data acquired on different magnetic nanoparticles in different experimental conditions (magnetized and not magnetized probes, out-of-field and in-field measurements) are analyzed, with the aim of individuating the possible phenomena affecting MFM measurements. These include topography-induced artifacts resulting from the tip-sample capacitive coupling, which we propose here for the first time. In case of measurements performed in presence of an external magnetic field, much more intense MFM signals were detected as it produces the saturation of the magnetization of the nanoparticles, which is not completely obtained by the sole stray field produced by the tip. Nevertheless, even in in-field measurements, the results evidenced the presence of significant electrostatic effects in MFM images, which, therefore, appear as an important factor to be taken into account for the quantitative interpretation of MFM data.