The surface of magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (γ-Fe₂O₃) is functionalized (-NH₂, -COOH) with bifunctional organic molecules and evaluated using FT-IR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy). We immobilize 21-base pair probe DNA and hybridize fluorescence-labeled (Cy5) target DNA onto the functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles. The fluorescence images obtained from a confocal microscopy show that the functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles should detect the hybridization of complementary and noncomplementary DNA.