Effect of Competitive Surface Functionalization on Dual-Modality Fluorescence and Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes.

It is well-known that ionic surfactant coated single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) possess higher near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) quantum yield than nonionic polymer functionalized SWNTs. However, the influence of surface functionalization on the magnetic properties of SWNTs for -weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has not been reported. Here, we demonstrate that SWNTs functionalized by nonionic polymers display superior relaxivity for MRI as compared to those coated by ionic surfactants.