P3HT:PCBM blend films phase diagram on the base of variable-temperature spectroscopic ellipsometry

• Barbara Hajduk,
• Henryk Bednarski,
• Bożena Jarząbek,
• Henryk Janeczek and
• Paweł Nitschke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1108–1115, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.102

• coefficient, which can be detected as change in the slope of d(T) plots [26]. Variable-temperature spectroscopic ellipsometry has been applied to study thin films of polymers such as polystyrene (PS) [27][28][29][30][31], poly(α-methylstyrene) [32], poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) [33][34] and polyester [35

Automated image segmentation-assisted flattening of atomic force microscopy images

• Yuliang Wang,
• Tongda Lu,
• Xiaolai Li and
• Huimin Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 975–985, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.91

• spin coating a thin film of polystyrene (PS) on a silicon (100) substrate at a speed of 500 rpm. Prior to spin coating, the silicon substrate was sequentially cleaned in a sonic bath of piranha solution, acetone and water for 30 minutes. The PS solution was obtained by dissolving PS particles

Comparative study of antibacterial properties of polystyrene films with TiO_x and Cu nanoparticles fabricated using cluster beam technique

• Vladimir N. Popok,
• Cesarino M. Jeppesen,
• Peter Fojan,
• Anna Kuzminova,
• Jan Hanuš and
• Ondřej Kylián

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 861–869, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.80

• [9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. In the current work, both Ti and Cu clusters are produced using magnetron sputtering in special cluster sources and deposited on substrates coated by a thin layer of polystyrene (PS). The focus is on the optimization of the nanocomposite formation using the cluster beam

Lyapunov estimation for high-speed demodulation in multifrequency atomic force microscopy

• David M. Harcombe,
• Michael G. Ruppert,
• Michael R. P. Ragazzon and
• Andrew J. Fleming

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 490–498, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.47

• have fundamental resonance frequencies of 168.8 kHz and 46.1 kHz, respectively. The samples used are a z-calibration grating (NT-MDT TGZ3) with periodic height features of approx. 500 nm and a blend of polystyrene (PS) and polyolefin elastomer (LDPE) available from Bruker (PS-LDPE-12M). Due to the

Engineering of oriented carbon nanotubes in composite materials

• Razieh Beigmoradi,
• Abdolreza Samimi and
• Davod Mohebbi-Kalhori

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 415–435, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.41

• (PU) or polystyrene (PS), is stretched too far. Fracture occurs and the oriented CNTs are formed in the fracture gap as shown in Figure 4. Since CNTs have the desired electronic properties and the method is easy to perform, this technique might be suitable for making CNT electronic devices such as

• the fractured part of the composite. Reproduced with permission from [33], copyright 2009 Versita Warsaw. SEM images of a polystyrene (PS) composite film containing 25 wt % CNTs. (a) Random networked CNTs on the film surface and (b) oriented CNTs by fracturing, reproduced with permission from [37

A robust AFM-based method for locally measuring the elasticity of samples

• Alexandre Bubendorf,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Thomas Schimmel and
• Ernst Meyer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1–10, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.1

• first flexural modes of the cantilever in contact were excited with the amplitudes A1 = 22 mV and A2 = 5 mV for all samples. Samples and measurement conditions Three different polymers (polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE)) and a self-assembled monolayer (SAM

Electro-optical characteristics of a liquid crystal cell with graphene electrodes

• Nune H. Hakobyan,
• Hakob L. Margaryan,
• Valeri K. Abrahamyan,
• Vladimir M. Aroutiounian,
• Arpi S. Dilanchian Gharghani,
• Amalya B. Kostanyan,
• Timothy D. Wilkinson and
• Nelson Tabirian

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2802–2806, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.279

• precleaned glass substrate by using a polymer support layer of polystyrene (PS, Mw 35k, 2% w/w in toluene) and an etchant acid (FeCl3 aq, 0.5 M) to remove the Cu, as described elsewhere [15]. This was followed by a wash in a warm ethyl acetate bath to dissolve the supporting polymer layer. Device fabrication

Material discrimination and mixture ratio estimation in nanocomposites via harmonic atomic force microscopy

• Weijie Zhang,
• Yuhang Chen,
• Xicheng Xia and
• Jiaru Chu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2771–2780, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.276

• signals were investigated systematically on a polymer blend composed of polystyrene (PS) and low-density polyehtylene (LDPE). We focused on the influence of feedback amplitude set-point, drive frequency and laser spot position along the cantilever beam. Based on these fundamental studies, harmonic AFM

Robust nanobubble and nanodroplet segmentation in atomic force microscope images using the spherical Hough transform

• Yuliang Wang,
• Tongda Lu,
• Xiaolai Li,
• Shuai Ren and
• Shusheng Bi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2572–2582, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.257

• for smaller objects by assuming sample surfaces are actually flat, which is not always true. Figure 1a is a raw AFM image of NBs on a polystyrene (PS) surface. One can see that the image height of the background increases along the y direction. This is mostly due to thermal drift of the AFM scanner

Identifying the nature of surface chemical modification for directed self-assembly of block copolymers

• Laura Evangelio,
• Federico Gramazio,
• Matteo Lorenzoni,
• Michaela Gorgoi,
• Francisco Miguel Espinosa,
• Ricardo García,
• Francesc Pérez-Murano and
• Jordi Fraxedas

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1972–1981, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.198

• oxide between the brush layer and the SiO2/Si substrate. Experimental Preparation and chemical modification of brush layers The starting substrates were <100> silicon wafers (p-type silicon of 4–40 Ω·cm resistivity) with a native silicon oxide layer on top. A thin film of hydroxyl-terminated polystyrene

• (PS–OH, Mn = 4.5 kg/mol and PDI = 1.09, purchased from Polymer Source), was deposited by spin-coating and annealed on the silicon substrate. Two different annealing conditions were used: (i) 260 °C in nitrogen atmosphere for 5 min and cooling in air and (ii) 230 °C in nitrogen atmosphere for 5 min and

Parylene C as a versatile dielectric material for organic field-effect transistors

• Tomasz Marszalek,
• Maciej Gazicki-Lipman and
• Jacek Ulanski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1532–1545, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.155

• energy exhibited a mobility of μ = 0.006 cm2/V·s. More detailed studies were carried out for tetracene semiconductor films deposited on various dielectric materials, namely organic polystyrene (PS), Parylene C, and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) as well as on inorganic SiO2, with and without HMDS

Micro- and nano-surface structures based on vapor-deposited polymers

• Hsien-Yeh Chen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1366–1374, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.138

• ) surface and a poly(4-ethynyl-p-xylylene-co-p-xylylene) surface, respectively. Various substrates were successfully verified for the coating and patterning modifications: metal (silver, titanium, stainless steel), polystyrene (PS), poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), silicon, glass, poly(dimethylsiloxane

Hierarchically structured nanoporous carbon tubes for high pressure carbon dioxide adsorption

• Julia Patzsch,
• Deepu J. Babu and
• Jörg J. Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1135–1144, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.115

• material. Experimental Materials Polystyrene (PS, pro-plast from BASF), tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS, ABCR), ammonia (NH3, Grüssing), dimethylformamide (DMF, Merck), tetrahydrofuran (THF, Merck), and ethanol (EtOH, Brenntag) were used as received without further purification. Synthesis of polystyrene

• fibres (1) In a similar manner as described in [38], electrospinning was performed in a homebuilt apparatus. Polystyrene (PS) fibres were electrospun from a 16 wt % PS THF/DMF 3:2 solution. After aging the spinning solution overnight, it was loaded into a glass syringe equipped with a stainless-steel

Methods for preparing polymer-decorated single exchange-biased magnetic nanoparticles for application in flexible polymer-based films

• Laurence Ourry,
• Delphine Toulemon,
• Souad Ammar and
• Fayna Mammeri

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 408–417, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.43

• ) or polystyrene (PS), using radical-controlled polymerization under various processing conditions. We compared the influence of the synthesis parameters on the structural and microstructural properties of the resulting hybrid systems, with special emphasis on significantly reducing their mutual

• and aggregation as far as possible in the first stage of polymer grafting, mechanical stirring and dilute suspensions of reactants were used, even if the functionalization of large amounts of particles becomes difficult. We specifically graft poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and polystyrene (PS

• polystyrene (PS) was difficult since there are many sources of organic matter (PS, initiator, residual polyol and acetates); however, unfortunately, styrene contains no other element suitable for XPS analysis. However, IR spectra of PS-decorated ENPs (Figure 3) exhibit several peaks characteristic of

Numerical investigation of depth profiling capabilities of helium and neon ions in ion microscopy

• Patrick Philipp,
• Lukasz Rzeznik and
• Tom Wirtz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1749–1760, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.168

• damage formation. The emission of H2, CH4, C2H2, C3H5, etc. has been observed for 100 keV He+ and 200 keV Ar+ bombardment of polyethylene (PE) and polystyrene (PS) [14]. Similarly, H2, C2H2, CO and CO2 are typically emitted from implanted PI [15]. The degassing leads to an increase of the carbon

• polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), polystyrene (PS) or poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). For samples 1 to 3, layers 1 and 5 have a thickness of 20 nm while the remaining layers have a thickness of 10 nm. For samples 4 and 6, layers 1, 3 and 6 are 20 nm thick, layers 2 and 4 are 10 nm thick and layer 5 is 40 nm thick. The

Experimental and simulation-based investigation of He, Ne and Ar irradiation of polymers for ion microscopy

• Lukasz Rzeznik,
• Yves Fleming,
• Tom Wirtz and
• Patrick Philipp

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1113–1128, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.104

• composition can be found. Methods Experimental setup For this study, different polymer samples were spin-coated on silicon (111). The homopolymers of polystyrene (PS) with molecular mass Mw = 1 900 (Mw/Mn = 1.10) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) with molecular mass Mn = 22 200 (Mw/Mn = 1.07) were obtained

• evolution of the He, Ne and Ar positions in the system at atomic level. Four different polymers have been selected: polyethylene (PE), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), atactic polystyrene (PS) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). Different polymer samples have been created, each sample containing 10

Magnetic switching of nanoscale antidot lattices

• Ulf Wiedwald,
• Joachim Gräfe,
• Kristof M. Lebecki,
• Maxim Skripnik,
• Felix Haering,
• Gisela Schütz,
• Paul Ziemann,
• Eberhard Goering and
• Ulrich Nowak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 733–750, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.65

• , nanosphere lithography offers the preparation of a self-assembled monolayer on the time scale of minutes even on a centimetre length scale. In this work, polystyrene(PS)-based nanosphere lithography was chosen, since monodisperse PS nanosphere suspensions are nowadays commercially available with a wide range

Characterization of spherical domains at the polystyrene thin film–water interface

• Khurshid Ahmad,
• Xuezeng Zhao,
• Yunlu Pan and
• Danish Hussain

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 581–590, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.51

• , University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan State Key Laboratory of Robotics and Systems and School of Mechatronics Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, P.R. China 10.3762/bjnano.7.51 Abstract Spherical domains that readily form at the polystyrene (PS)–water interface

• have been used to produce such films. Polystyrene (PS) is one of the most widely used materials for the preparation of thin films. Thin PS films have been prepared by spin coating [11][12][13][14][15]. So far, these films have been used in different studies related to surface and interface science, for

High-bandwidth multimode self-sensing in bimodal atomic force microscopy

• Michael G. Ruppert and
• S. O. Reza Moheimani

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 284–295, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.26

• calibration grating available from NT-MDT with periodic rectangular features of heights h = 21.6 ± 1.5 nm and a blend of polystyrene (PS) and polyolefin elastomer (ethylene-octene copolymer) (LDPE) available from Bruker (PS-LDPE-12M). The PS regions of the sample have elastic modulus numbers around 2 GPa

Chemical bath deposition of textured and compact zinc oxide thin films on vinyl-terminated polystyrene brushes

• Nina J. Blumenstein,
• Caroline G. Hofmeister,
• Peter Lindemann,
• Cheng Huang,
• Johannes Baier,
• Andreas Leineweber,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Christof Wöll,
• Thomas Schimmel and
• Joachim Bill

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 102–110, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.12

• [36] as organic templates are known, which can modify the surface charge on the substrates for ZnO precipitation under moderate conditions. Based on these studies, we investigated the ZnO film formation on silicon wafers modified with vinyl-terminated polystyrene (PS) brushes. Those brushes consist of

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

• wide spectrum of polymers has been investigated including polystyrene (PS) [13][20], poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) [25], poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) [23], poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc) [26] and poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) [23]. Recently, we have reviewed wear occurring on polymeric surfaces and

• one to several hundreds of nanometers can be reproduced on the surface of polycarbonate (PC), poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), and polystyrene (PS) films. Authors have clearly shown that the ripple formation varies with T and polymer type (Figure 8a). The dependence on T has been characterized and

Template-controlled mineralization: Determining film granularity and structure by surface functionality patterns

• Nina J. Blumenstein,
• Jonathan Berson,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Petia Atanasova,
• Johannes Baier,
• Joachim Bill and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1763–1768, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.180

• a templating substrate – properties which, in turn, are key properties for nanodevices. Experimental Template preparation by polymer-blend lithography Polymer solution: Polystyrene (PS, Mw = 96 kg/mol, PDI 1.04) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA, Mw = 9.59 kg/mol, PDI 1.05) were purchased from

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

• polystyrene (PS) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), dissolved in methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) is used. This system forms a purely lateral structure on the substrate at controlled humidity, which means that PS droplets are formed in a PMMA matrix, whereby both phases have direct contact both to the substrate

• 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

High sensitivity and high resolution element 3D analysis by a combined SIMS–SPM instrument

• Yves Fleming and
• Tom Wirtz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1091–1099, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.110

• is widely used in the SIMS field. The 3D SIMS-AFM surface reconstructions are visualised using the SPIP™ software by Image Metrology [15], the ParaView software tool [16] as well as the MayaVI 2 software tool [17]. Results and Discussion PS/PVP polymer blend An annealed polystyrene (PS

Optimization of phase contrast in bimodal amplitude modulation AFM

• Mehrnoosh Damircheli,
• Amir F. Payam and
• Ricardo Garcia

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1072–1081, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.108

• –surface force is modelled by Equation 6 where a0 is a molecular distance (0.165 nm). Material and cantilever–tip parameters To study the phase contrast we have simulated the bimodal AM operation for two materials gold (Au) and polystyrene (PS). The values of the material properties needed to describe the