Aqueous suspensions of paramagnetic lanthanide oxide nanoparticles have been studied by NMR relaxometry.The observed
![](/isubscribe/journals/jpccck/111/i28/eqn/jp072288l<font color=)
e10001.gif"> relaxivities are explained by the static dephasing regime (SDR) theory. The corresponding
R2 relaxivities are considerably smaller and are strongly dependent on the interval between the two refocusingpulses. The experimental data are rationalized by assuming the value of the diffusion correlation time,
D, tobe very long in a layer with adsorbed xanthan on the particle's surface. In this layer, the refocusing pulsesare fully effective and
R2 ![](/images/entities/ap.gif)
0. Outside this layer, the diffusion model for weakly magnetized particles wasapplied. From the fit of the experimental relaxation data with this model, both the particle radii (
rp) and theradii of the spheres, within which the refocusing pulses are fully effective (
rdiff), were estimated. The valuesof
rp obtained are in agreement with those determined by dynamic light scattering. Because the value of
rdiffdepends on the external magnetic field
B and on the magnetic moment of the lanthanide of interest (
eff2), the
R2 relaxivity was found to be proportional to
B and to
eff2.