Drug Monitoring by Optically Pumped Atomic Magnetometer

A novel drug monitoring method is experimentally demonstrated by optically pumped atomic magnetometer. An elliptically polarized single-beam spin-exchange-relaxation-free atomic magnetometer (SERF AM) is used to realize magnetorelaxometry (MRX) measurement and thereby quantify concentrations of superparamagnetic nanoparticles in solutions. Moreover, drug-conjugated magnetic nanoparticles are monitored in mice for twelve hours to study the drug sustained-release mechanism. Our results show the great potential of optically pumped atomic magnetometer for application in biophysical, pharmaceutical and medical areas, and may promote fields such as drug delivery research, virus detection, and molecule quantification.