Block copolymers for designing nanostructured porous coatings

• Roberto Nisticò

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2332–2344, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.218

• /homopolymer formulations [81][82]. The microdomain arrangement is affected by heating, since BCs can exhibit phase mixing upon heating, due to the increase in the translational (or combinatorial) entropy and subsequent decrease of the phases interaction area. It can also exhibit phase separation as a result

Electrospun one-dimensional nanostructures: a new horizon for gas sensing materials

• Muhammad Imran,
• Nunzio Motta and
• Mahnaz Shafiei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2128–2170, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.202

• template is removed by annealing. The morphology of the NFs is dependent on sputtering time, resulting in uniformly distributed branches all over stem. Jun et al. [77] developed polypyrrole (PPy)-coated SnO2 tube-in-tube structures using single-nozzle electrospinning with a phase separation solvent method

• , respectively (Figure 8k,l) [183]. Similarly, a very low concentration of acetone (120 ppb) can be detected with a fast response/recovery time (11/6s) using thin-walled wrinkled layer SnO2 NTs functionalized with Pt by a controlled phase separation technique [163]. The selectivity of SnO2 NFs is also improved

Nanoconjugates of a calixresorcinarene derivative with methoxy poly(ethylene glycol) fragments for drug encapsulation

• Alina M. Ermakova,
• Julia E. Morozova,
• Yana V. Shalaeva,
• Victor V. Syakaev,
• Aidar T. Gubaidullin,
• Alexandra D. Voloshina,
• Vladimir V. Zobov,
• Irek R. Nizameev,
• Olga B. Bazanova,
• Igor S. Antipin and
• Alexander I. Konovalov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2057–2070, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.195

• fragments [32] and appear due to the reaction conditions (see Experimental section). Because of the presence of mPEG groups, compound 3 can be considered a non-ionic surfactant. It is known, that in aqueous solutions of non-ionic surfactants increasing temperatures leads to phase separation. There are two

• a phase separation up to 90 °C, while solutions of 3 in a physiological solution of sodium chloride (0.9% NaCl) solution or in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS, pH 7.4) clouded at 60 °C (Figure 4a). DLS method showed that an increase of the particle size of 3 in the presence of salts occurred already

Nanocomposites comprised of homogeneously dispersed magnetic iron-oxide nanoparticles and poly(methyl methacrylate)

• Sašo Gyergyek,
• David Pahovnik,
• Ema Žagar,
• Alenka Mertelj,
• Rok Kostanjšek,
• Miloš Beković,
• Marko Jagodič,
• Heinrich Hofmann and
• Darko Makovec

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1613–1622, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.153

• in toluene resulted in the rapid flocculation of the iron-oxide nanoparticles, which was macroscopically visible as a phase separation (Figure 1). This phase separation was more pronounced when a small permanent magnet was placed beside the container, as shown in Figure 1. The flocculation is most

• conducted in the suspension of NP-RA in toluene to which methacrylic anhydride and pyridine were added. At the beginning of the polymerization the suspension was colloidal; however, after a short time of polymerization, the macroscopic phase separation was clearly visible. In contrast, the suspension of NP

Absence of free carriers in silicon nanocrystals grown from phosphorus- and boron-doped silicon-rich oxide and oxynitride

• Daniel Hiller,
• Julian López-Vidrier,
• Keita Nomoto,
• Michael Wahl,
• Wolfgang Bock,
• Tomáš Chlouba,
• František Trojánek,
• Sebastian Gutsch,
• Margit Zacharias,
• Dirk König,
• Petr Malý and
• Michael Kopnarski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1501–1511, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.141

• broad overview of all available techniques and approaches [11]. Here, we focus on the Si NC growth via phase separation of PECVD-deposited, P- or B-doped silicon-rich oxide thin films via annealing at high temperatures. Additionally, we focus on comparatively lowly doped samples (on the order of 0.1–1

Patterning of supported gold monolayers via chemical lift-off lithography

• Liane S. Slaughter,
• Kevin M. Cheung,
• Sami Kaappa,
• Huan H. Cao,
• Qing Yang,
• Thomas D. Young,
• Andrew C. Serino,
• Sami Malola,
• Jana M. Olson,
• Stephan Link,
• Hannu Häkkinen,
• Anne M. Andrews and
• Paul S. Weiss

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2648–2661, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.265

• measured by electron diffraction [55][56]. At molecular resolution, scanning probe measurements have revealed the rearrangement of Au surface atoms [57][58][59], diffusion and alignment of adatom–adsorbate complexes [50][60], and phase separation of SAMs composed of molecules with different backbones or

• terminal functionalities [61][62][63]. Phase separation is driven by stronger intermolecular interactions between one type of SAM molecule vs another in mixed SAMs. The rearrangement and displacement of molecules in mixed monolayers can also be manipulated by choosing other head groups, such as selenols

Changes of the absorption cross section of Si nanocrystals with temperature and distance

• Michael Greben,
• Petro Khoroshyy,
• Sebastian Gutsch,
• Daniel Hiller,
• Margit Zacharias and
• Jan Valenta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2315–2323, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.231

• displays [3]. A device fabrication process demands an effective control of size, shape and density of Si NCs. All those requirements can be met via the superlattice approach in combination [4] with the phase-separation of sub-stoichiometric oxides (SiOx) where the NC spacing in all three dimensions can be

Advances and challenges in the field of plasma polymer nanoparticles

• Andrei Choukourov,
• Pavel Pleskunov,
• Daniil Nikitin,
• Valerii Titov,
• Artem Shelemin,
• Mykhailo Vaidulych,
• Anna Kuzminova,
• Pavel Solař,
• Jan Hanuš,
• Jaroslav Kousal,
• Ondřej Kylián,
• Danka Slavínská and
• Hynek Biederman

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2002–2014, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.200

• prove advantageous, especially if more reactive metals are considered. For example, titanium is known to form strong TiC bonds when sputtered in organic plasma [74]. Carbidization of titanium atoms may hinder metal–polymer phase separation and it may even change the properties of titanium inclusions

Nanotopographical control of surfaces using chemical vapor deposition processes

• Meike Koenig and
• Joerg Lahann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1250–1256, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.126

• , condensable species into the gas feed mixture ensures phase separation simultaneously with the polymerization and crosslinking reactions. The porogen is removed in a post-deposition process using vacuum or solvent treatment. Gupta and co-workers demonstrated that in the iCVD process the monomer itself can act

Atomic structure of Mg-based metallic glass investigated with neutron diffraction, reverse Monte Carlo modeling and electron microscopy

• Rafał Babilas,
• Dariusz Łukowiec and
• Laszlo Temleitner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1174–1182, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.119

• -sized fine particles. The black and grey particles are dispersed randomly and densely in the amorphous matrix. The high-angle annular dark-field (HAADF) results were used to observe phase separation in the studied glass after heat treatment. The image collected in HAADF mode allows randomly distributed

• al. [34] used the HAADF technique to indicate a local compositional fluctuation caused by nanoscale phase separation in Zr–Cu–Ni–Al–Ti bulk metallic glasses. They achieved bright contrast regions with size above 2 nm. The authors also stated that the identified contrasts are in good agreement with

• high-angle annular dark-field (HAADF) observation was used to observe phase separation. The HAADF mode allowed randomly distributed, dark contrasts regions with size from 4 to 6 nm to be observed. The value of the first coordination shell radius was found to be similar to the interplanar spacings

Bio-inspired micro-to-nanoporous polymers with tunable stiffness

• Julia Syurik,
• Ruth Schwaiger,
• Prerna Sudera,
• Stephan Weyand,
• Siegbert Johnsen,
• Gabriele Wiegand and
• Hendrik Hölscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 906–914, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.92

• -CO2 to form a homogeneous solution; (ii) pore nucleation and phase separation induced by a thermodynamic instability, which is usually caused by a temperature increase or a pressure decrease, and (iii) pore growth due to diffusion of SC-CO2 from the polymer matrix to the pores [20]. When the polymer

Analysis and modification of defective surface aggregates on PCDTBT:PCBM solar cell blends using combined Kelvin probe, conductive and bimodal atomic force microscopy

• Hanaul Noh,
• Alfredo J. Diaz and
• Santiago D. Solares

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 579–589, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.62

• the majority of modern PSCs consist of nanoscale bulk heterojunction (BHJ) structures [7], changes in the internal structures, such as local crystallization of polymers or phase separation of donor and acceptor mixtures, greatly affect the device performance [8][9]. Extensive research has been

In situ formation of reduced graphene oxide structures in ceria by combined sol–gel and solvothermal processing

• Jingxia Yang,
• Johannes Ofner,
• Bernhard Lendl and
• Ulrich Schubert

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1815–1821, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.174

• 0.05 and 0.02 g, the Raman mapping showed no obvious phase separation, indicating that rGO and CeO2 were homogeneously dispersed. However, when the GO proportion was 0.2 g, phase separation (agglomeration of rGO) was observed by partial disappearance of the CeO2 signal and the enhancement of the rGO

Nano- and microstructured materials for in vitro studies of the physiology of vascular cells

• Alexandra M. Greiner,
• Adria Sales,
• Hao Chen,
• Sarah A. Biela,
• Dieter Kaufmann and
• Ralf Kemkemer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1620–1641, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.155

• order to give an overview of different microfabrication techniques, relevant examples for different approaches such as optical (photolithography [49]), mechanical (hot embossing [50] and surface cracking [51][52]) or chemical (replica molding [53][54], phase separation micromolding [55][56][57], gas

• nanostructures of few tens of nanometers, for example (Figure 4B) [53] After further modifications, the elastomer substrate can be used for cell experiments. Phase separation micromolding is an alternative, less common microfabrication technique for structured substrates. This technique consists of separating a

Reconstitution of the membrane protein OmpF into biomimetic block copolymer–phospholipid hybrid membranes

• Matthias Bieligmeyer,
• Franjo Artukovic,
• Stephan Nussberger,
• Thomas Hirth,
• Thomas Schiestel and
• Michaela Müller

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 881–892, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.80

• giant vesicles (Figure 2A). Nile red was used as a general hydrophobic dye to visualize the membranes; TopFluorPC was used to assess possible phase separation between lipids and polymers. The molecular weight of PIPEO appeared to have no observable effect on the formation of vesicles despite the

• hydrophobic mismatch between lipid and polymer. This finding indicated that the selected PIPEO and DPhPC were highly miscible. The absence of phase separation towards micrometer-scale lipid- and polymer-rich domains was in line with other lipopolymer mixtures at a similar lipid-to-polymer ratio [39][42][45

• ] and similar membrane curvature [39][40][41][43][44][45][54][55]. Lipopolymer vesicles formed from mixtures containing more than 50 mol % DPhPC, however, revealed a heterogeneous distribution of TopFluorPC and a clear phase separation between polymer and lipid (Supporting Information File 1, Figure S2

Correlative infrared nanospectroscopic and nanomechanical imaging of block copolymer microdomains

• Benjamin Pollard and
• Markus B. Raschke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 605–612, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.53

• Benjamin Pollard Markus B. Raschke Department of Physics, Department of Chemistry, and JILA, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA 10.3762/bjnano.7.53 Abstract Intermolecular interactions and nanoscale phase separation govern the properties of many molecular soft-matter systems

Nanoscale rippling on polymer surfaces induced by AFM manipulation

• Mario D’Acunto,
• Franco Dinelli and
• Pasqualantonio Pingue

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2278–2289, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.234

• -b-PEO, the melting enthalpy of PEO, and the Helmholtz free energy for unfolding (and melting) of PEO. Composite films: Another class of samples showing a peculiar pattern formation are polymer blends. They can be miscible or immiscible, presenting clear phase separation or a similar morphology to

• studies carried out on heteropolymer films can be also found in the literature. Buenviaje et al. have studied blends made of two immiscible components with different Tg values [49]. In samples exhibiting phase separation, regions corresponding to different materials would present nanoripples with

A single-source precursor route to anisotropic halogen-doped zinc oxide particles as a promising candidate for new transparent conducting oxide materials

• Daniela Lehr,
• Markus R. Wagner,
• Johanna Flock,
• Julian S. Reparaz,
• Clivia M. Sotomayor Torres,
• Alexander Klaiber,
• Thomas Dekorsy and
• Sebastian Polarz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2161–2172, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.222

• steadily increasing price, it is highly desired to identify materials alternatives containing highly abundant chemical elements. The doping of other metal oxides (e.g., zinc oxide, ZnO) is a promising approach, but two problems can be identified. Phase separation might occur at the required high

• is still very high, a potential phase separation into ZnO and ZnCl2 could be a problem. Therefore, the material prepared at T = 350 °C was investigated using powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) analysis shown in Figure 3a. As a reference pure ZnO materials were prepared under analogous conditions, but

In situ SU-8 silver nanocomposites

• Søren V. Fischer,
• Basil Uthuppu and
• Mogens H. Jakobsen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1661–1665, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.168

• ]. Furthermore, it is difficult to obtain stable suspensions of preformed NPs in SU-8 without aggregation and phase separation. In situ synthesis methods where the particles are formed directly within the polymeric matrix from a precursor can circumvent this problem. Here, we report a fast and simple method for

Nano-contact microscopy of supracrystals

• Adam Sweetman,
• Nicolas Goubet,
• Ioannis Lekkas,
• Marie Paule Pileni and
• Philip Moriarty

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1229–1236, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.126

• and sample structure. Nonetheless, our results clearly show that there is significant potential for qPlus DFM imaging to provide high resolution images of the surfaces of nanoparticles and, for example, to lay to rest the controversy regarding molecular self-assembly and phase separation in the ligand

Polymer blend lithography for metal films: large-area patterning with over 1 billion holes/inch²

• Cheng Huang,
• Alexander Förste,
• Stefan Walheim and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1205–1211, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.123

• , Germany 10.3762/bjnano.6.123 Abstract Polymer blend lithography (PBL) is a spin-coating-based technique that makes use of the purely lateral phase separation between two immiscible polymers to fabricate large area nanoscale patterns. In our earlier work (Huang et al. 2012), PBL was demonstrated for the

• plasmonic resonance; metal islands; metal nanostructures; metal polymer blend lithography (metal PBL); nano-patterned template; nanoscale discs; optical transmission; perforated metal film; polymer phase separation; poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA); polystyrene (PS); self-assembly; spin-coating; surface

• polystyrene (PS)/poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) blend film from a blend solution ends with a purely lateral phase separation between the two immiscible polymers under controlled spin-coating parameters (see Figure 1a). As reported in our earlier publication, the ambient atmosphere (humidity), the molar mass

Electronic interaction in composites of a conjugated polymer and carbon nanotubes: first-principles calculation and photophysical approaches

• Florian Massuyeau,
• Jany Wéry,
• Jean-Luc Duvail,
• Serge Lefrant,
• Abu Yaya,
• Chris Ewels and
• Eric Faulques

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1138–1144, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.115

• photoexcitation. The efficiency of this approach is strongly dependent on the internal junctions between the polymer and the electron acceptor or donor. However, many fundamental questions remain regarding the underlying energy transfer processes involved. Phase separation within domains should not in principle

Observing the morphology of single-layered embedded silicon nanocrystals by using temperature-stable TEM membranes

• Sebastian Gutsch,
• Daniel Hiller,
• Jan Laube,
• Margit Zacharias and
• Christian Kübel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 964–970, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.99

• these membranes that also withstand the high temperature annealing that is needed to induce phase separation and crystallization of the Si NC layers. In contrast to the above mentioned ion implantation, deposition processes allow for sharp interfaces between two confining silicon oxide (SiO2) layers

• is expected, which is limited by the possibility of atomic rearrangement. Since the phase separation is completed within a few seconds due to diffusion of oxygen [43], the nanoparticle growth and shaping can only be achieved through the diffusion of Si within SiO2, which is extremely low at the used

Intake of silica nanoparticles by giant lipid vesicles: influence of particle size and thermodynamic membrane state

• Florian G. Strobl,
• Florian Seitz,
• Christoph Westerhausen,
• Armin Reller,
• Adriano A. Torrano,
• Christoph Bräuchle,
• Achim Wixforth and
• Matthias F. Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2468–2478, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.256

• that phase separation and phase transitions play an important role in the function of cell membranes in general [31] and for membrane traffic in particular [32]. These effects are usually discussed in terms of the role of phase separations for cell signaling and protein recruiting. However, lipid

• -induced phase separation in the mixed lipid membranes used. As shown earlier, phase separation can trigger budding and fission processes [43][44]. Finally, one should be aware of the fact that very small particles tend to cluster before an uptake into vesicles [27][28]. Thus, the effective radius being

• particle uptake. We assume the distinct mechanical and thermodynamic properties of lipid bilayers to play a major role here. Further studies should investigate the influence of local particle-induced phase separation on this process, which earlier findings indicate [30][35][44]. This is particulary

Inorganic Janus particles for biomedical applications

• Isabel Schick,
• Steffen Lorenz,
• Dominik Gehrig,
• Stefan Tenzer,
• Wiebke Storck,
• Karl Fischer,
• Dennis Strand,
• Frédéric Laquai and
• Wolfgang Tremel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2346–2362, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.244

• no need to pay attention to achieve phase-separation when synthesizing Au@Fe3O4 heterodimers, but the morphology control remains a challenge. Wei and co-workers demonstrated the formation of dumbbell to flowerlike Au@Fe3O4 heterodimer nanoparticles by increasing the ratio of multiply twinned Au seeds