VILLANOVA, Pa – For advanced science students, biopharmaceutical researchers, and even patients at the doctor’s office, nanoscience is an important yet unseen part of everyday life. Villanova University Physics professor Georgia Papaefthymiou, PhD, explores how nanomagnetism, a developing field of nanoscience, can be applied across disciplines to dramatically shape the world of physics, health care and biology, to name a few, in her new book Nanomagnetism: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Chapman and Hall, 2022).
Nanoscience is a field that focuses on incredibly small types of matter called nanomaterials—which have a dimension of 10-9 of a meter. Though nanomaterials are much too small to be seen without a microscope, they play a big role in technologies like magnetic recording media, permanent magnets, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) enhancements, and magnetically-guided drug delivery. Dr. Papaefthymiou’s book focuses on the ways magnetized nanomaterials function and their impact on disciplines across the sciences. “Nanoscience is where quantum mechanics meets classical physics, and materials science and engineering intersect with physics and chemistry,” she explains.
Among other applications of nanomagnetism, Dr. Papaefthymiou notes two of its medical purposes in the book: enhancing MRI images and improving cancer therapy, specifically using it to deliver radiation locally to cancerous tumors. “Nanomagnetism helps us develop new medical approaches to imaging and better understand medical problems,” she says.