Magnetic susceptibility and hardness of Au–xPt–yNb alloys for biomedical applications

Metal devices in the human body induce serious metal artifacts in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Metals artifacts are mainly caused by a volume magnetic susceptibility (χv) mismatch between a metal device and human tissue. In this research, Au-xPt-yNb alloys were developed for fabricating MRI artifact-free biomedical metal devices. The magnetic properties, hardness and phase constitutions of these alloys were investigated. The Au-xPt-8Nb alloys showed satisfactory χv values. Heat treatments did not clearly change the χv values for Au-xPt-8Nb alloys. The Vickers hardness (HV) of these two alloys was much higher than that of high-Pt alloys; moreover, aging at 700°C increased the HV values of these two alloys. A dual phase structure consisting of face-centered cubic α1 and α2 phases was observed and aging at 700°C promoted phase separation. The Au-5Pt-8Nb and Au-10Pt-8Nb alloys showed satisfactory χv values and high hardness and are thus suggested as candidates for MRI artifact-free alloys for biomedical applications.