The present invention shows extremely small iron oxide nanoparticles, 2 nm core size, 68Ga core-doped through a microwave driven synthesis that provides an expedited protocol with radiolabelling efficiency yield of around 90%, optimal for short half-lived isotopes. In vivo hot spot MRI (T1 weighted contrast) and PET imaging are demonstrated with unprecedented quality for iron oxide-based dual modality probes. The results incorporated herein show, for the first time, a new concept for dual-modality nanoparticle production and effective probe production with single core integration of both sources of contrast that will surely boost a large number of cardiovascular applications.
