Waiting time dependence of T<inf>2</inf> of protons in water suspensions of iron-oxide nanoparticles: Measurements and simulations

The transverse relaxation time T2 of protons in water suspensions of iron-oxide particles increases with the waiting time t w after the sample is inserted in the gap of the spectrometer magnet. Such a T2 increase becomes significant if the particles are aggregated into large clusters, for which field-induced formation of cluster-chains will occur and T2 should increase with increasing the length of chains. T2 increases with tw even for small particles, for which no chain formation may be induced, and for large clusters when tw is too small to form long enough chains. The T2 increase is accompanied by a significant echo-time dependence. All this is experimentally and theoretically studied. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.